


Nightfall, Daybreak, and the Bright Red Sun

by Sophia_Prester



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: F/M, Fractured Fairy Tale, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3396065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared and Jensen learn the hard way that it is never a good idea to incur the wrath of a witch. It doesn't matter that they didn't <em>mean</em> to - they still need to complete three impossible tasks by the appointed time, or the witch will have them for tea (and <em>not</em> as her guests). If they're going to have any chance of survival, they will need to work together, which may turn out to be the most impossible task of them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Transformations

The first sign that this was not going to be a good day was waking up to a blinding, spike-through-the-brain headache.

"Owww.... "

The second sign was the gradual and pain-fuddled awareness of not being snug in his own bed or sprawled out in the hayloft for a nap. 

"Crap."

Jensen had woken up like this only a few times before (certainly not more than five times, because he was Not That Kind Of Guy, thank you kindly) but often enough that he knew to expect the gradual, muddled return of a specific kind of memory - good music, good ale, good food, and the pleasant feeling of someone's hand on his ass (or the other way around - either was just fine by him) and a whispered suggestion that they take the festival celebrations somewhere a bit more _intimate_. 

"Dammit, JD... what the fuck did you put in the cider _this_ time?" If it was those freaky mushrooms again, Jensen was going to _kill_ him.

Sitting up would not be happening any time in the immediate future, so he waited. For a memory, for a groggy and hung-over answer from whoever he snuck off with for a good time, for the headache to go away, for _anything_.

All that happened was the slow realization that he was still very much dressed, which meant either a blessed lack of awkward morning conversation or the presence of a really, _really_ awkward morning conversation. He was also splayed belly-down on a smooth wooden floor. He had been there long enough that the drool puddling under his cheek had had time to dry to glue. Also, his back _hurt_ , like someone had twisted up a wet towel and given him a good hard thack between the shoulder blades. Yes, it was going to be a day full of pain.

"Urrrgh..."

Another few minutes passed. Or maybe just a few seconds. Either way, it felt like an hour. No memories of good times returned to ease the throbbing in his head. No hint dropped to tell him what the hell he had done to himself this time. 

There hadn't been any weddings or naming celebrations for... well, for a close to a year, and wow, _that_ was a depressing thought he'd been managing to avoid until just now. He hadn't had any excuse or opportunity to sing or play in what felt like forever, not since the big ball of suck that was Planting Moon. The next big festival was supposed to be Harvest Moon, but that was a month and change away - and that was assuming there was a harvest to go with the moon of that name. So what _had_ he been doing? And why couldn't he remember? No matter how blitzed he'd gotten before (no more than five times, honest and for true - okay, maybe six), he had always remembered _something_ in the morning haze.

"Note to self - next time JD says to try something new he's cooked up 'cause this batch is REAL good, say 'no,' would ya?"

Jensen creakily levered himself into a sitting position and scrubbed away the worst of the drool with the back of his hand. The headache had faded from blinding to pounding and he was now able to see that he was in a small, circular room with a scant amount of light coming from straight above. The light was steady, not flickering, so that meant daytime - and daytime meant he'd been out of it for a good long while. Last he remembered, he had snuck through the orchards and into the forest just before twilight to check his snares for whatever small game might still be around. He had even brought his bow, on the very, _very_ off chance he spotted a deer or a boar. 

Most of the trap lines he had put out after dawn were still untouched, the leaves he'd masked them with exactly as he had placed them. The last one had been tripped - a rabbit, judging by the tracks - but the sad scattering of bloody fur on the ground around the line was the only thanks Jensen would get from the fox who had enjoyed an easy meal at his expense.

So it looked like it was going to be roasted turnips and dessicated cheese rinds for dinner again. Yay. Except ...

Except against all hope, and just as the sun was halfway below the horizon, he had seen a deer. It was the first deer he'd seen in over a month, and it wasn't some skin-and-bones wreck that was already halfway to being jerky. It was a plump, doe with a glossy, russet hide. She must have found a good source of juicy forage _somewhere_. Her eyes were bright and unsunken, and her nose was darkly moist and uncracked, meaning she had also found a regular supply of water. Jensen remembered nocking an arrow and salivating to the point of distraction at the thought of a nicely grilled venison steak. Or brisket, braised in cider. Or his mom's venison stew, rich with tender onions and sweet chunks of carrot. And, then venison sausages, studded with bits of apple and sage. He had been very careful not to make any noise - his stomach didn't even rumble, miracle of miracles - but the deer turned to look straight at him. It didn't startle and run. It didn't go still and wary. It just gazed at him, head cocked and eyes crinkled as if laughing at a private joke, and - 

And that's where the memory cut to black with a sharpness that brought to mind a heavy stick upside the head. He groaned and pressed his fingers to his temples, but that did nothing to relieve the pressure. What had happened? The only thing of any value he had with him were his bow and his knife, but a smart robber would have waited until after he'd shot the deer to clonk him over the head. It's what Jensen would have done - if he was that kind of guy. Which he wasn't. Or it could have been someone from the village's other sect deciding to be an asshole. 

Jensen _hmphed_ , and enjoyed the flare of self-righteous disgust. One of those Daybreak bastards might be petty _and_ stupid enough to pass up a chance at easy meat just to make a point. That wouldn't surprise him one tiny, infinitesimal bit. But why drag him into this weird, circular room?

Jensen stood up and nearly pitched forward onto his face. It wasn't wooziness. Simply standing up had pitched him a foot off the ground and he hadn't been ready for that. He should have fallen, but a weird twitch-and-tug at his back held him upright. He wheeled around to see who might have grabbed at him, but there was no one there. Just the curved brick wall, which surrounded him in a perfect circle and narrowed as it went up to a flat ceiling. Something about the space struck him as familiar, but he couldn't figure out what. A silo of some kind? No, not open at the top like that, it wouldn't be. It had something to do with plants, but damned if he could figure out what it was. All he did know was that he'd feel like an idiot when he figured it out.

Then he noticed something weird about the brick. It wasn't brick.

Jensen drew closer to the wall then away again as his own shadow blocked what little light there was. From what little he could see, the wall was the right color for brick but when he reached out and ran his fingertips across the surface he didn't feel a single line of mortar. It was as if the whole room had been carved out of a single, giant piece of red stone. He went around the entire circumference of the room, which was only a little more than wide enough for him to lie down in, but found no cracks or anything that might indicate a door. The only opening was the small circle about eight feet above his head, and it was too small for him to squeeze through. 

Oddly enough, this only made the space seem more familiar, familiar enough to give him a scent-memory ( _sweet dust, harsh green, cool earth_ ) of his mom's workshop. Even though there was no way he could reach it, he jumped for the opening above him. His legs propelled him up higher and faster than he anticipated, so much so that he muffed the grab for the opening even though it was in easy reach. 

And of course, what goes up, must go down. He braced for impact, but the fall was strangely slow, and his knees and ankles didn't have anything to protest when he landed. He wasn't expecting that. He also wasn't expecting the muscles between his shoulders to twitch. None of this made any kind of sense.

"What the hell is going on here? Where am I?" 

There was a thump overhead, and the room went dark as the hole overhead was partially blocked. "Um... if what's going on is the same thing that happened to me, I could tell you, but I'm not sure you'd believe me. Or understand? It's... complicated. And weird. I'm still trying to figure it out."

The voice was familiar, but not immediately recognizable. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, so Jensen opted out of the usual round of 'Hi, my name is Jensen! What's yours?' in case that ended in something heavy and/or disgusting dropped on him through that hole up above. He still wasn't sure how he ended up in here, or what he did to deserve it (not that he deserved such at thing). 

Fortunately for him, the stranger was content to keep on talking with no additional prompting.

"As for where you are, you're kind of trapped under an upside-down flower pot."

Jensen blinked a few times. "Mind running that past me again?"

The stranger ran it past him again. It didn't sound any different this time around.

"Okay. So I've been trapped under a big-ass flower pot." And yes, his mom would give him shit for not recognizing one of the tools of her trade. "How do I get out? You said the same thing happened to you, so you got out somehow, right?"

He was not going to think about how badly he needed to pee. He wasn't.

The light appeared again overhead, and he felt a brief flutter of panic at the thought that the stranger had abandoned him, but then there was a faint thump over to the side, and the stranger's voice came through the wall. 

"If you push, you should be able to move the pot to where I can help you get out from under. It slides easy enough - I'll help. It'll be even easier with two of us pushing."

"Okay." There must be a spot where the floor dropped off enough for him to wriggle out from underneath. Maybe this was some sort of threshing floor. Not that he knew what that was, actually. But it sounded good.

"You ready? On three?"

"Sounds good. On three." Jensen braced himself against the clay wall, legs bent and ready to push. "One, two, three, _PUSH!_ "

The pot slid forward a foot before hitting something. Something that said "Ow!"

"Uh, sorry about that?" 

"Try pushing the other way," the voice said, sounding a bit muffled. Also testy. "Away from me this time, okay?"

It took a few false steps (one of which was _definitely_ in revenge for his completely innocent mistake earlier), but the two of them soon fell into a rhythm of one-two-three- _PUSH_ , one-two-three- _PUSH_ that had them scraping steadily forward.

"Just another couple of feet - well, sort of," his savior-stranger said. "I think. But be careful on this last push, okay? We're almost at the edge, and there's a big drop."

"Gotcha." Big drop sounded good. Less wriggling that way. "All right. Ready? One-two-three- _PU-OHSHIT!_ "

The floor simply disappeared, and Jensen did what one did when floors disappeared: he plummetted. 

It had to be nearly fifty feet down to nothing but flat stone (and why couldn't it be fifty feet down to a nice, fluffy haystack?) and a messy end. He started to scream in terror but something between his shoulders twitched and his fall slowed.

 _Twitch_.

The scream became a "What the hell?!"

His fall stopped. 

Jensen hung there in mid air and gave thanks to the Night that he still needed to pee, because this - this was _beyond_ freaky. Beyond even mushroom cider-induced levels of freaky. 

Unless he had completely lost his mind, he was hovering in mid-air in the middle of a huge room, and the hovering was only one part of the utter weirdness. Smooth wooden pillars loomed around him like giant trees in the deepest forest - so massive it took him a moment to identify them as table legs and chair backs. The daub walls in the far distance, the rush chair seats sprawling out like barren fields, the towering butter churn in the corner - he knew all of these things from his mother's kitchen, but the churn was twice as big as the local mill, the cauldron could have held a lakeful of water, and his entire house could have fit on one of the chairs with room to walk all the way around.

"What the ever-loving..." 

There was no way this could be real, but there it was in front of him. He found himself starting to observe himself observing rather than actually looking around. It was easier, that way. It made it more like a story he was trying to learn than something that was actually happening. Happening to _him_.

"Oh, crap! Are you okay?" the stranger called from above. "I'm so, _so_ sorry about that! I was hoping to fly down real fast and help pull you through the gap when we got to the edge, but - "

Fly? He was flying? That's what this was? And what was with all the giant furniture? Giant funiture? 

_Giant_ furniture. 

_Giant._

"Oh, shit..." This was not good. He knew a good many stories about giants, and one thing the stories agreed upon was that giants _ate_ people. Jensen flipped from abstract observation to being ruthlessly present between heartbeats, already sorting out if there would be better cover if he went up or down. 

Down. Down sounded good, especially if he was new to the whole wing thing. "I'm heading down. You said you could fly, right? Meet me down on the floor. You can't fall to your death from a floor, right?"

"Down? Uhh... sure." The laugh sounded a little nervous. "Okay?"

Jensen tried making the muscles on his back twitch more slowly, and he began to drift downwards, spiraling gently as he tried not to wobble like an idiot. He accidentally wafted closer to one of the table legs, close enough to see a piece of paper nailed to the leg. There was writing on it. With a little leaning and working one side of his back more than the other, he was able to drift close enough to read but not so close that the letters became unreadably big. The note said:

**DON'T WORRY!**

Jensen decided this was not as reassuring as it could have been. The fact that the note was framed by sets of rough, fresh gouges in the surrounding wood may have had something to do with this. They looked familiar, but the scale of them wouldn't let him slot them into any kind of context.

Another note a few yards further down read: 

**THERE ARE NO GIANTS.**

This also failed at being reassuring.

If it wasn't giants, then what was it? This thought nagged at him even as part of his brain screamed an answer that he wasn't ready to listen to yet. And how was he flying? That was another question, but given that he wasn't a messy pile of ex-Jensen on the stones below, it felt a ungrateful and possibly very unwise to question about it overmuch.

By the time he was just a few feet from the floor, he felt like he was getting the hang of this flying thing. 

A few seconds later, as he struggled back to his feet, Jensen thought that maybe he should also try getting the hang of the landing thing.

The light dimmed in a flicker of shadow overhead, drawing Jensen's attention up to his sort-of-rescuer swooping down from the table in long, graceful arcs. Huh. Maybe he should have tried that instead of the flutter-flutter-drift method. For one thing, it looked pretty damn cool.

Jensen didn't know he'd been assuming that their wings were bird wings until he saw with pleased surprise that they were in fact _bat_ wings. His sect didn't get much into symbolism these days beyond the odd bit of decoration, and Jensen wouldn't say he was the superstitious type, but bats were always considered to be a good omen for the Nightfallen. At the very least, more bats meant fewer mosquitoes, which put them solidly in Jensen's good books. 

Jensen flexed his own wings, enjoying the slight lift and wishing there was a mirror handy. He tried looking over his shoulder, but the motion of turning also flexed his wing back and out of his peripheral vision. He'd just have to admire himself later.

The other man stumbled slightly when he landed, but didn't face-plant the way Jensen had. He stood there for a moment, hunched over with his hands on his knees and his long brown hair hanging in front of his face. Again, something about the stranger made him think it wasn't a stranger. 

A memory slipped in, teasing him - broad shoulders brushed by decadently messy brown hair, a taut ass that flexed nicely in an easy saunter, and a quicksilver shiver of attraction accompanying the up-down look of appreciation. The voice _had_ been familiar, and Jensen wondered if he had heard it during one of those few (certainly no more than seven) awkward morning conversations after a night of celebration.

The other man was still hunched over and taking deep, shuddering breaths. It put Jensen in mind of one of Kenzie's cats just before it horked up some partially-digested mouse parts.

"You okay, buddy?"

There was a shaky nod, but the man still stayed hunched over. "That... was a long way down." He swallowed, and Jensen instinctively stepped back and out of splatter range. "Sorry. All the... swooping. Seasick."

Jensen figured that now was not the time to point out that the proper term in these circumstances was probably 'airsick.' What it was time for was to scout out some good hiding places. Off to the side, he saw a chunk of flower pot lying on the floor like a beached rowboat, and he sympathized with his new friend's nausea. That looked like one heck of a close call. A little further away, he saw the rest of the flower pot, largely whole except for the missing chunk. He recalled his mother tucking broken pots here and there in her herb and vegetable gardens. Once upon a time, she'd told him she was making little houses for lost fairies, but it was actually to encourage toads to move in and eat all the bugs.

The thought that _he_ might need to hide in one of those pot-houses was funny and queasy-making at the same time, and he was closer than he wanted to be to sitting down and hugging his knees and rocking back and forth while staring into nothing. He needed a moment to think, a moment with no suprises, a chance to take a goddamn breath. He quickly identified a few other likely places: behind the churn, in a knitting basket, behind a stack of kindling, under the jelly cupboard. Each of them was seriously flawed in one way or another. 

He caught a faint motion in the fringes of his vision, pulling his attention away from the nooks and crannies. A loose drift of blue-grey fur tumbled towards and then past him in a lazy loop, carried this way and that by a draft.

It was a _big_ ball of fur. He'd seen its like before, but this one came up past his waist instead of being small enough to pick up between thumb and forefinger. The gouges in the table leg now made complete, horrible sense.

"C'mon pal! Tell your stomach to suck it up, and let's get somewhere less exposed, a'right? Whoever put us here, they've got a cat. One that's built to the same scale as the furniture."

Without waiting for an answer, Jensen grabbed the other man's hand and hauled him towards the jelly cupboard. It didn't offer a lot of shelter, but it gave them a good view of the kitchen, several different escape routes, and enough depth to keep them out of paw's reach. A smaller cat _might_ be able to squeeze underneath, but not quickly. His new friend's hand engulfed his own, and it was almost a comfort.

Something rabbit-soft brushed against his arm and flicked the edge of his wrist guard. He second-guessed the jelly cupboard, thinking that maybe having a way to escape up would be good, but then he remembered how his sister's favorite cat could leap up and knock a barn swallow out of mid-air with one swipe of her claws.

And maybe he was superstitious after all, because when he saw that expanse of welcoming shadow under the cupboard, what thrummed through his heart was _shelter_ and _home_. It was the sort of place where he could hug his knees and rock back and forth in peace while he waited for someone else to make the nightmare go away.

He ducked his head, but yelped in as something behind and above his head smacked into the underside of the cabinet. Oh, yeah. Wings. He hoped he hadn't just broken something that meant he couldn't fly. 

"Okay," he gasped. "Let's catch our breath and figure out just what the heck's going on." He raised his arm to backhand the sweat from his brow and frowned to see something lavender and glittery smeared on his arm and wrist guard. He shrugged, and wiped it clean on his trousers. At least he'd seen it before rubbing foo-foo sparkly shit all over his face. That dealt with, he turned to see how his new buddy was doing.

His new buddy stood way too close to the edge of the cabinet, where the slanting daylight reached underneath, in easy sight and reach of a hunting cat. He was suitably alert, though, and checking their surroundings. Before Jensen could say anything, the other man flexed his wings and tentatively folded them around him like a cloak, shifting them around like an ill-fitting jersey until everything settled into place.

Jensen tried doing the same, but only succeeded in sending a few pony-sized dust bunnies flying and working out the last remaining kinks in his back.

"Wow. You'll have to show me how you did that," he said. The light caught some deep chestnut glints in the man's hair, and Jensen grinned when he saw the tantalizing glimpse of warm skin where the shirt collar had tugged to the left. For some reason, his brain thought it was an opportune time to point out that if Jensen stepped forward, he could rest his chin quite comfortably on that little patch of skin and slip his arms under those wings and around that narrow waist.

Jensen told his brain that even though it _had_ been a long time since the last occasion for such activity, now was really not the time. Maybe later, though, in celebration of getting through a hard, weird time together. Yes, yes... that could work out _very_ nicely.

The man turned around and Jensen finally got a good look at his rescuer.

"Are you shitting me?" he yelped. "Padalecki?"

Padalecki blinked in puzzlement, and then his face pulled into an expression suggesting he'd just walked into a room full of cabbage farts. Ah, yes. Recognition was clearly mutual. "Ackles." The disdain was thick and oily as rancid butter. "I should have left you under that flower pot."

For his part, Jensen was thinking that he should have pushed that flower pot a little harder into that stuck-up Daybreak bastard's face. 

"Yeah, well thanks for letting me think I was going to fall to my death! A little more detail would've been nice, but no, it was all 'oh, it's too hard to understand!'" He put a little extra whine into his voice. "Did you ever think it was too hard for you to understand because you're a dumbass?"

That earned him a full eyeroll accompanied by a huffy crossing of his arms over that stupidly broad chest. 

"I _thought_ I would let you assess the situation for yourself without influencing your opinion," Padalecki said, snippy as a schoolmarm. He looked like he was going to start to say something else, but stopped himself. He took a deep breath and let his arms fall heavily and deliberately to his side. "Listen, I'm not exactly thrilled about being stuck here with someone with your kind of reputation, but - "

"The hell?"

"- but even you have to admit we're in... well, I don't even know _how_ to start describing this. I don't like this any more than you do, and probably way _less_ , but we need to work together until we can get this figured out and get home safe."

Jensen turned to the side, laughing in disbelief. "Well a good start to working together would be you not implying that I have a reputation, which I _don't_ , and that's rich coming from someone who's left behind a string of broken hearts. How many girls is it now? I remember helping Jason practice music for two weddings, minimum." 

Padalecki flinched so sharply Jensen almost heard the smack of the well-deserved slap across his face. "That's not the kind of reputation I was hinting at. It says a lot, though, doesn't it, that it was the first thing you jumped to? I had two - just _two_ \- serious relationships, and I was heartsick about breaking off both of them. But you..." His eyes were wide as if pleading, but his mouth twisted in contempt. "You're always off into the barns with someone new at each festival, aren't you? There must have been dozens - "

"Try _eight_. Maybe nine, okay?" Well, no more than ten, max, depending on how you counted. "That's not _dozens_. And hey, you know what? No matter what you think of my 'reputation,' _I_ didn't leave 'em looking like they'd gotten a knife to the heart as a farewell gift!" Danneel was _still_ one of his best friends, close enough that his mom had made sure Dani wasn't going hungry these past few months no matter how tight things had become for all of them. "Trust me, I get it. It's always the same old story, right? You Daybreakers like to talk a good game about virtue and prudence and shit, but in the end... dude, what is up with your _ears?_ "

Jensen had meant to launch into his usual rant about the hypocrisy and general smarminess of the the entire Daybreak sect (with the possible exceptions of Jason, Misha and Aldis, if he was in a decent mood) but there was something odd about Padalecki besides the bat wings. If he hadn't been venting some truly righteous steam, he would have noticed it before now. He _should_ have noticed it, given that the man's ears had gone long enough at the top to stick out through his hair and were pointed besides. 

Padalecki cut short whatever rant about the Nightfallen he was about to tear into (probably some of the same old blah about lax standards, laziness, flightiness, blah, blah, heard-it-before, blah) and boggled at Jensen. He lifted his hands tentatively to the side of his head, all the while looking at Jensen with an intentness that was starting to become freighted with meaning. Somehow, Padalecki knew _just_ how far to reach up to touch the tips of his ears, and when Jensen raised an eyebrow in question, he gave a slow nod that had Jensen reaching up to feel the warm, pliant tips of his very own set of pointy ears.

"Well, shit."

Padalecki nodded slowly, still looking poleaxed. "I... that pretty much sums it up." The color drained from his face. "Oh, no. We don't have tails or anything like that, do we?"

Jensen reached back, but decided he didn't want to grope his own ass in front of an audience, and especially not this particular audience. "Wanna turn around? I'll check you out. Uh, check you for a tail."

Padalecki turned around and flicked his wings open. No tail, and the rear view was almost as attractive as it was before Jensen knew who it belonged to. Jensen didn't know all that much about Sandy (except that she was cute), but he and Gen had been friends since they were little kids. He'd seen for himself the kind of shit some idiots gave her for being from a mixed-sect family - as if she'd had any sort of choice in who she was born to. Having a Daybreaker publicly lead her on and then toss her aside like an apple that was only fit for the pigs had damn near broken her spirit along with her heart. People used to swear up and down that what sect you were born to only mattered to the old folks and at festival time, but you didn't have to scratch too deep before it started mattering.

These past few months, you didn't have to scratch at all to see the ugliness. Everyone wore it out in the open like their festival best. Even mom had had to think about it for a minute before admitting Gen into the 'don't let them starve' club even though she'd known Gen years longer than she'd known Dani. He liked to think he was still on good terms with Jason and Misha, but he hadn't spoken to either of them in public since right before the Long Days Moon festival that hadn't happened and hadn't spoken to them much in private after that, either.

"No tail," he said shortly, looking off into the shadows before he forgot himself and started enjoying the sight. "You're in the clear."

"That's a relief. Uh, your turn?"

Jensen sighed and turned his back on Padalecki for a scant three seconds before turning around again. "Good? Good. 'Cause I gotta take a piss." He stalked off towards the baseboard to take care of business.

"You're just going to do that inside?" Prissalecki squawked.

"Yup." Even in the deep shadows, Jensen could see that his pee was way too dark. The last time he'd had anything to drink was before he'd set out to check the traps. He hadn't planned to be gone long, so he couldn't justify dipping into the day's rations to fill his waterskin. "You got a problem with that? Cat, remember? I'm not going to risk getting eaten just so I can avoid offending your delicate Daybreak sensibilities."

Fresh water, on the other hand, would be another matter before too long. That might well force them out into the open. Plus, even though he'd gotten used to going on an empty belly for a good stretch, he was starting to get the shakes. Of course, that could have been from all the weird.

He heard a gasp just as he was fastening his flies, and turned to see Padalecki backing slowly into the shadows. "Jensen!" he hissed. "It knows we're here!"

Jensen was about to ask how they'd suddenly gotten buddy-buddy enough to be on first-name terms, but then he saw the cat stalking slowly towards them. Some other time, he would have thought it was a pretty cat, with a magnificent plume of a tail and a lush coat the color of a sky about to storm. It stalked towards them as inexorably as the storm it resembled, tail lashing and head low, the lantern-yellow eyes right at a level with Jensen's head. Logic coolly informed him that the beast couldn't fit under the cupboard but instinct jumped up and down and screamed that it could snarf him down in two bites.

They backed further back and a little bit towards each other as well. The cat's stalking slowed to a tense crouch, and then it started wiggling its butt in a way that was freaking adorable when you were teasing your sister's cat with a feather tied to a string and freaking terrifying when you were the target of its attention and a two-bite snarf.

"Come out here, strange little mice. Come out here, tasty treats," the cat trilled. "I want to pounce. I want to play. I want to bite!"

"It talks?" he blurted out. There was no point in whispering.

"We'll play, treats. We'll play and we'll play and then I'll eat! Tasty, tasty toys!"

Jensen looked over to the side. The churn was a short dash away, and that might give them enough cover to fly up and into the rafters. Maybe even up the chimney and outside. 

Where, of course, he would be plucked out of the air by the first passing hawk. Because that was how life was working today.

"Think we can outrun it?" Padalecki asked.

"Oh, yes! Run! Run is _fun!_ "

"I wasn't asking _you!_ " Padalecki snapped.

"Uh, dog person, I assume?" Jensen asked.

"Yeah. And I really wish mine were here right now."

The cat hissed in disgust.

"Ah, shut yer stinking trap, ya manky fleabag!" 

A fourth voice had joined the conversation, this one much higher pitched and coming from closer to the floor than Jensen and Padalecki. The two men looked down. A tidy, dun-furred mouse looked up. It flicked its whiskers forward in something that Jensen automatically translated as a cheery smile.

"Heya!" it said.

"Uh, hi?" Padalecki said, because unlike Jensen, he'd apparently been raised to say something more polite than "Holy shit! A talking mouse!"

"An' you're two wee winged humans!" the mouse said as if enjoying a good joke among three old friends. "'Tis good to be talking to you-uns an' not worry about being trod on, aye? Oop! Might want to hop back a bit, laddies!"

The cat sprung forward and thrust its paws under the cupboard. It came within an inch of slicing Padalecki's belly open. Jensen reached for his knife, and finding it tucked in his belt where it should have been was easily the best thing that had happened to him that day.

"That were close indeed! Are you unharmed, taller wee human?" asked the mouse. 

Padalecki nodded. He'd gone pasty pale, not that Jensen could blame him. "Peachy," he rasped.

"Och! But where are my manners?" The mouse groomed its whiskers in a show of polite embarrassment. "I am Lady Gnaws-the-Baseboards, Countess of the South Wall clan, but please - call me Gnaw."

The cat had flopped over on its side and was pawing wildly at the air under the cupboard in hopes of snagging one of them. "I will call you lunch!"

"It's well past tea-time, dearie," the mouse - Gnaw - corrected. She turned back to the two men. "Nightfall will be here soon enough, laddies. With any luck, the witch will be home before long and she'll toss that beastie outside for the night. Ye'll be all right, then."

"The witch?" Jensen asked. Oh, today just kept getting better and better and _better_. He knew lots of stories about witches and none of them were reassuring in the slightest.

"Well, _that_ explains a lot," Padalecki muttered. "Lady Gnaw, what can you tell us about the witch?"

Gnaw twitched her tail, a gesture that probably would have been a shrug in a human. "She looks like a human, but doesn't smell like one, if ye ken my meaning. She leaves us South Wall folk alone for the most part, though we're on our own lookout when it comes to that vile cat of hers. Time to time, we'll be asked to fetch a particular pebble or particular bug, and she's good about leaving a bit of something sweet as payment, but..." She sighed. "It's been different of late. She stomps around and throws things more - she nearly hit Sir Nibbles-the-Corn with a rotten potato, can you imagine! It wasn't on purpose, though, and we got a free potato out of it, so no harm done. And then this morning, she brings in the taller wee human and this afternoon, she brings in the shorter wee human. 'Tis strange. 'Tis very strange."

"Um, excuse _our_ manners, Lady Gnaw, but we forgot to tell you our names," Jensen said, because being called 'shorter wee human' was something that needed to happen _never again_. "I'm Jensen Ackles of Nightfall."

Padalecki looked a little put out on not being the one to call for proper manners, and Jensen felt a warm flutter of satisfaction deep in his heart. "And I'm Jared Padalecki of Daybreak."

Gnaw's nose twitched in surprise. "Aye? And here I thought that would have been the other way around," she said, but offered no other explanation. "'Tis good, though, to see you standing here like good friends. Our cousins out in the village have reported things haven't been so well of late. There's much less grain, and so many more traps."

Both Jensen and Padalecki said "We're not -" at the same time, then cut themselves short at the mutual interruption. No, they weren't friends, but now that the automatic outburst had been shut down, Jensen was glad it hadn't come out. They weren't friends, but they _were_ stuck in a weird situation together, and working against each other wasn't going to help. Padalecki had been right about that much, damn him.

The cat had stopped its futile digging and was now crouched in front of the cupboard, staring at them. If they could wait it out, they could get out and fly up somewhere it couldn't get. They might even be able to scout out some food and water. The more he thought about it, the more Jensen realized that 'down' had been a bad idea. Not that he would ever say so.

They sat down to wait. The patch of sunlight from the window slowly slid across the floor, growing golden and then redder as afternoon faded towards evening. Lady Gnaw, who apparently prided herself on being a good hostess, invited them in to her home, but the hole under the baseboard was too small for the two humans to fit through. So, she had two of her daughters bring them a few pieces of walnut. The nuts were on the edge of being rancid, but Jensen was hungry enough that they still tasted _fantastic_. Also, if there was one advantage to being this small, it was that you could fill your belly on half a walnut. It had been far too long since he hadn't felt hunger tugging at his stomach. Scurry and Skitter also managed to drag two hazelnut shells full of water out to them, which was even more welcome than the food. Padalecki reached out and skritched Skitter behind the ears as thanks, and grinned at the way her eyes half-closed in bliss, and how Scurry nudged him, gently demanding her turn. 

Fortunately, Jensen was able to stifle his own grin at how cute it was before Padalecki noticed. He started pulling together a crack about not knowing where those mice had been, etc., but remembered justin time that even though they were technically vermin, they were Lady Gnaw's daughters, and his mom would have skinned him alive for being a dick to their hostess.

Out in the kitchen, the cat mewed piteously at the sounds of eating, and Padalecki actually gave the ferocious thing a look of sympathy. "It's hard to tell with how fluffy it is, but I think it probably hasn't had a good enough meal in a while."

"Are you volunteering to go out there and help with that?" Jensen asked, all fakey-sweet. That didn't stop Lady Gnaw from giving him a sharp look that reminded him that yes, she was very much a mom. Heck, if they could get past the fact that his mom's first reaction would be to swat Lady Gnaw with a broom, Gnaw and Mom would probably get along great.

The last square of daylight became a sliver that was partway up the wall, and then it faded to nothing, leaving the room in the gloom of twilight. Lady Gnaw abruptly sat up on her haunches. The cat lifted its head and looked towards the door. Its tension shifted from about-to-pounce to about-to-flee.

"Is it the witch?" Jensen asked. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard hoofbeats drawing closer. Then, he didn't just hear them, he felt them shaking the ground.

Gnaw's ears twitched in negation. "'Tis one of her servants," she said, and there was no sign of the generous good cheer that Jensen had already come to associate with her. She gave a nervous glance at Jensen. "'Tis the one who looks after your folk, Jensen. 'Tis Nightfall."


	2. Nightfall

"Nightfall?"

Jensen's first reaction was to protest _but that's just a story_ , but there were still some elders in the village who spoke of the Riders as if they were real, and there were plenty of people his own age who would have said that witches were just a story. As for him, there were some old stories he knew were true and others he knew were myth, but now he couldn't give any kind of good reason for why which should be which. Padalecki looked at him with a mix of awe and something else. Jealousy?

The hoofbeats slowed to a stop and the ground stopped rumbling. He heard and the creak of leather as someone dismounted. Then, there were three heavy knocks on the door. The cat yowled and darted off to who-knew-where.

"Wait," said Padalecki. "Nightfall is the witch's _servant?_ Is... Daybreak, too?" He sounded shattered, and Jensen couldn't help feel bad for him. He knew from Jason that the oldest stories and songs still _mattered_ to the Daybreak folk in a way that he himself didn't quite understand, despite being a storysinger himself.

"Oh, aye," Lady Gnaw said proudly. "She's verra powerful, our witch is."

There were another three knocks, even heavier this time. Then, there was a deep sigh, a pause, and the sound of a key in the lock. The door swung open to reveal the evening-shrouded form of Nightfall reaching up to put the spare key back on top of the lintel.

"Light!" Nightfall commanded, and holy crap - Nightfall was a woman? That was almost as surprising as the fact that every lantern and candle in the house bloomed into light at once. All the old stories described him - well, her - as a knight. His bad for assuming that also meant 'male.'

Dani, he thought, would be _thrilled_ to hear about this. He hoped he got the chance to tell her.

"I thought Nightfall would like the dark," Padalecki whispered. Jensen just rolled his eyes. One of the best things about nightfall - the event, that was - was the act of gently taming the darkness with a light you yourself had made. Everyone knew that. Everyone who wasn't a Daybreak idiot, that was.

Nightfall strode into the room, calmly checking side to side before exposing her back to anything that might have been lurking in the corners flanking the door. She was, of course, clad all in black from her strange helmet down to her heavy boots, and Jensen could see that the horse waiting obediently outside was also black, as was to be expected. Also, unless his judgment of scale was completely off, it was also half-again as big as Misha's largest draft horse. Nightfall's clothing was heavy canvas and leather, high quality but well-worn. The jacket hung as if it was armored inside, and it bore scars and punctures that had been mended with no intent of hiding that the wearer had been in some rough battles. 

She carried a large burlap sack, but Jensen couldn't even begin to guess what was in it. Whatever it was, she dropped it at the door as she continued into the house, clearly looking for something. Or someone. 

Or two someones.

There was another sigh as she bent down to pick up the broken flowerpot. "I _told_ her she should have weighted them down with rocks," she muttered. Then, she spoke louder, and Jensen felt his bones vibrating inside him. "I know you two are in here. I suggest you come out. I don't have time for games."

Her voice was calm, but no less commanding for it. She sounded reasonable in a way that suggested she could quickly become unreasonable if thwarted.

They both looked to Lady Gnaw, who nodded solemnly. "She's not good, and she's not bad. She just is," she said, echoing a line from dozens of stories Jensen had heard and sung over the years.

They headed out into the kitchen. Jensen had to clear his throat a couple of times before Nightfall pulled off her helmet and looked down to study them.

She looked nothing like what he expected. Even Padalecki seemed startled. Nightfall had short warm-blonde hair, dewy pink lips and a peaches and cream complexion that looked like it would go gold in the sun. Her eyes were a soft blue. Where were the jet-black hair and the coal-dark eyes? Why wasn't her skin moonlight-pallid or a brown so deep it melted into the forest shadows? 

There were a lot of songs that would need tweaking after this little revelation. Jason would be _pissed_.

Nightfall sighed again. Jensen got the idea she did that a lot. "And _why_ am I not surprised? Honestly..." She shook her head, then sat down on the floor in front of them, legs crossed and back plumb-line straight. "And before you ask what that means, that comment was not for you. You know who I am."

It was not a question, but they both nodded anyway, obedient as the hypothetical schoolchildren that only existed in the dreams of teachers.

"I was told to give this to the one under my patronage." She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a letter that was dinky in her black-gloved hand but that was as tall as Jensen. She placed it in front of Padalecki, causing Jensen to yelp in outrage and Padalecki to point accusingly at him.

Her brows drew together in puzzlement and her rosy lips thinned to a stern line.

"I do not get paid enough to put up with her so-called sense of humor," she muttered. She cleared her throat. "It was an understandable mistake on my part," she said as she put the letter in front of Jensen. She did not ask forgiveness for the understandable mistake.

The wax seal was bigger than Jensen's head. He hacked at it a bit with his knife before he could pry it up. He stood on the letter to read it, backing up a few steps with each line.

**Dear Jensen and Jared,**

**I hope this letter finds you both well.**

**You may be wondering why you have been imprisoned, shrunk, and transformed. The answer is simple: each of you tried to kill me.**

"What! I did not!" 

Beside him, Padalecki gave similar protests.

 **Did too,** the letter continued. **Attempted murder is attempted murder, and both your lives are forfeit to me. That is the old law, and it is my right to claim restitution. However, I am a kind and forgiving person.**

"Yeah, right. You really expect me to believe that bullshit?"

**I do expect you to believe that. I am giving you a chance to redeem yourselves. Forgiving, see? I have set for you three trials, which you must undertake together. My servant Nightfall will tell you the terms of the first trial. If you succeed, another of my servants will give you instructions as to the second trial. Also, one part of your current punishment will be lifted.**

**If you fail, however, I will grind your bones into powder and bake you into my bread.**

"What!" Padalecki backed away from the letter as if it would turn into a mortar and pestle and crush him right there. 

Jensen blinked. "Hold on. You use bones for broth, not for bread. What is up with that?"

"Wait... _That's_ the first thing you think of? I cannot believe you just said that!"

**I can't believe you said that, either. Bread is traditional, whether you're a witch or a giant. You're a storysinger. You should know that, Jensen.**

**Please pass this letter on to dear Countess Gnaws-the-Baseboards. Also, do feel free to help yourselves to any food you might find. As I said before, I am a kind and forgiving person. My servant will give you instructions on how to proceed.**

**Sincerely,  
The Witch**

Jensen recognized the handwriting and the style from the notes he'd seen tacked to the table leg. "She sounds like an interesting boss," he told Nightfall.

"You have _no_ idea," she deadpanned. "Let's move this along. I have instructions to give you. I have a bag of wheat and rye that have been 'accidentally' co-mingled." She nodded her head towards the sack by the door. "Some of the grain is moldy. Another 'accident.' Your task is to separate the wheat from the rye and dispose of the moldy grains. You must do this by daybreak, of course."

"Of course," Jensen said weakly. It was a _big_ sack.

"The grain must be completely separated, and the bad grains completely removed. All of the good grains must be accounted for. Lady Gnaw, in the interest of fairness, you are to instruct your people to eat none of the good grains."

Nightfall stood up in one smooth motion that made Jensen's knees creak in envy, and crossed to the door in two sharp strides. She picked up the bag, and simply upended it in the middle of the room. Jensen shielded his face with his arm to fend off the stinging grains and let out a series of 'ows' as they pinged his wings. He tried folding them back out of the way again, but only succeeded in lifting himself a few feet off the ground.

Before he could lower his arm (and the rest of himself), he heard the thump of the door. Nightfall was gone.

"At least she left the lights on," he muttered. He told himself that he wasn't at all disappointed by how the meeting had gone. Maybe if he kept telling that to himself, he would start believing it. "How bad is it?" he asked.

"Bad."

Most of the grain was in a heap in the middle of the floor, but quite a bit of it had scattered everywhere, including under some of the furniture. he picked up a grain, but had no idea if it was wheat or rye, or if it was a good grain or a bad one. Even though it hurt his soul to do so, he looked pleadingly over at Padalecki. His family were farmers. Maybe they knew this shit.

"I can tell wheat and rye apart easily enough," he said, "but we'd have to inspect each and every grain to make sure there wasn't any mold, and that pile is taller than I am! If it was just separating the wheat from the rye, we _might_ be able to do it in time."

"I'm not too sure about that." Jensen flicked his eyes towards the butter churn. The cat had poked its head out into the open and was watching them. It licked its chops.

Lady Gnaw came back out with Skitter and Scurry. She instructed her two darling lassies to tear up the letter and take it back into the den. "It will make lovely bedding when shredded, it will. As for you two laddies, you'd best get started on your task."

"Why bother?" Jensen said, but he was more pissed off than resigned. "She set it up so we're screwed before we begin. And, for the record, I did NOT try to kill her! I've never even met her!"

But he remembered that doe. The unexpectedly plump and healthy miracle of a doe, and the very un-doelike look it had given him. He felt his hands shake and his cheeks grow icy-hot at the unfairness of it. How the hell was he supposed to know? And how was he supposed to react, when a big hunk of meat presented itself to him like that, practically begging for an arrow in its throat and carrots in the stewpot after?

"What? What is it?"

Jensen didn't owe Padalecki any kind of story, but he told it anyway and felt better for the telling of it. Parts of it even fell into a nice rhythm of its own accord, which was soothing in and of itself. "And what about you? What did you do?"

Padalecki's cheeks flushed and fists clenched. Jensen could sympathize. "I was checking to see if there was anything salvageable on our apricot trees. Most of the blossoms got killed by that late freeze that hit us right after Planting Moon, but the southern part of the orchard was more sheltered. But of course nearly everything that _had_ survived the freeze got hit by bugs. We've had some windfall apricots and plums, but the wasps keep getting to them before we can."

Jensen nodded along. Everything that could have gone wrong since last fall had gone wrong. Winter had hit early and had been unusually harsh, even though his mother had said the plants were telling of a late and mild winter. They made it through to Planting Moon, all a bit thinner for it, but thinking the worst was over. But a late, killing frost hit was followed by not enough rain and half the wells in the village going brackish without warning. Then there were the bugs, and then the storms just after Thunder Moon that brought flash floods that washed away much of the seed that had been planted. The winds had destroyed half of the Padaleckis' remaining orchard, and nearly all of the Ferrises' vineyard. Day after day after day of ridiculous heat set in right after, drying up the water before it could sink in to the soil. Padalecki's story was all too familiar.

What followed next was also familiar in shape if not in detail.

"I'm at the very last tree, and I see a patch of orange deep inside. My first thought was that it was just some more dead leaves, but then I see that there's a bunch of nice, juicy and perfectly ripe apricots hanging right within easy reach. It's a miracle. So, of course I go to pick them and I black out. But right before then, I'm pretty sure the apricots, um... winked at me?"

His face showed the remembered horror of the moment and a resolve to stick to a strictly carnivorous diet from here on out.

"Wow."

"Exactly. So, how are we going to solve this? I'm not just going to give up, are you?"

Jensen scoffed. Like he'd let himself be shown up by this guy. Gen would never forgive him. "Of course not. So, we've got three problems to solve here." He counted them off on his fingers. "One, sort the grain. Two, get rid of the moldy grain. Three, don't get eaten by the cat."

The cat who was now stalking slowly towards them again. They retreated back under the cupboard. 

"Well, we have to work together, but do you think we need to work alone?" Padalecki asked. "Lady Gnaw, if we can figure out what to do about that cat, can your people help us with the grain?"

She smoothed her whiskers as she thought. "Och, aye, that we can. And gladly, if you'll give us the moldy grain for our own." She chittered in delight. "The mold gives it a lovely tang. But what do you mean by wheat, and what do you mean by rye? We know corn to look at it, but grain is grain until we taste it, no? But we can't do that without you failing this task. And I'll not see my people eaten by that beast over yonder."

Jensen was having an idea he really wished he could avoid having. But it was a good idea for all that he hated it. "Well... One of us can distract the cat and keep it over on the other side of the kitchen. Maybe?"

Padalecki raised an eyebrow. He fluttered and shrugged his wings about him. "And by one of us, you mean...?"

"I mean we take turns," Jensen snapped. "I don't like you that much, but not so much that I want to see you get eaten. The other of us stays with Lady Gnaw's people to help them sort things out and make sure no one eats anything they're not supposed to. You start off down here, since you know the difference between wheat and rye. I'll signal when I'm tired and then we'll switch."

"That... actually sounds sensible." Padalecki looked more admiring than surprised, which was nice. Jensen was about to take off when Padalecki called to him to stop. "We need to figure out a few details, first. Like, where the piles go, how to get everybody on board with how we're going to do this and figure out how to keep everyone from making mistakes - that letter made it sound like we have to do this _absolutely_ right."

"Right. Or we'll be toast. Literally." 

Lady Gnaw groaned, but Padalecki actually gave him a half-smile. Jensen did not smile back.

It took ten minutes of discussion with Lady Gnaw and three of her senior mice, ten minutes where Jensen was trying not to fidget overmuch, but they _finally_ got things figured out. Padelecki showed him how to tell the difference between the wheat and rye seeds (rye, pointy; wheat, not pointy) and made him repeat back the system the mice would use to do the work. It was annoying, but it made sense, and he could tell that Padalecki was good at this sort of thing.

"It just feels good to finally be able to _do_ something," Padalecki said just before Jensen set out to face the cat. "Even if it's only to keep us from being ground into flour. Be careful up there, okay?"

"Thanks." Somewhere along the line, Padalecki had shifted from prissy Daybreaker disdain to being civil and actually something close to friendly. Jensen kinda-sorta pinned it down to happening sometime after he called the other man out on the shit he pulled with Gen, but he didn't get _why_. Oh, well. He could think about that later. Right now, he had to think about that stupid cat.

He marched right out into the kitchen and away from the grain pile, as per the plan. He stood out on the open and spred out his arms and flexed his wings. "Hey, kitty-kitty-kitty! You wanna piece of this?" He put his hands behind his head and wiggled his hips from side to side, finishing things off with a little pelvic thrust for emphasis. "Come and get it, big boy!"

"I will!"

The cat's eyes went from slits to full dark and it jumped. So did Jensen. Straight up and much higher than he would have imagined, even before he twitched his wings. He went up, up, up, getting a sense how far he could go with each twitch of his wings, until he was just a little bit higher than he thought Kenzie's best hunter could leap. He slowed to a stop and kicked his legs temptingly. The cat leaped and he flapped higher, laughing at the cat's shout of frustration.

"Nice try, kitty! Wanna - oh, no you don't!" 

The cat's attention was distracted by the easier prey that was busily shuttling grain into three separate piles.

He dropped down, spiralling rather than plunging, and that brought the cat's attention back to him. He flitted back out of reach, then up as the cat pounced. This time, he dropped right down onto its back, grabbed a couple of handsful of fur and held on for dear life.

The cat leapt and twisted like a whirlwind, and proved Jensen's theory that cats did, in fact, know an impressive array of profanity. After a moment, he let go and sailed several feet up, cackling as the cat kept jumping around in circles, trying to bite at its own back.

"Get off get off get off!" the cat shouted at nothing. Oh, Kenzie would love this...

"Hey! Up here, dumbass!" he called. He flew up to the mantel to take a quick break. If the cat jumped, or turned its attention back to the mice, he could be fly down in a snap, but from the way its sides were heaving, he knew it needed a breather before it would pounce again.

He took the opportunity to check the lay of the land. Assuming it was built to human scale, the witch's kitchen was small, but he suspected it was part of a larger structure, given the slant in the ceiling that rose to another wall with a door in it rather than up to a peak and back down. Aside from the table, chairs, and cupboard, there was a long counter with a pitcher and washbasin. In the corner was a tall glass-fronted shelf filled with jars and boxes. It reminded him of his mother's herb workshop, where she kept stocks of the medicinal herbs that she didn't want to get mixed in with the cooking herbs. Larger bunches of herbs hung from soot-darkened rafters, and so did a few strings of summer sausages. 

The windows were, of course, all closed. The hearth below him looked swept clean of ash, and he didn't hear any wind in the chimney behind him, which made him suspect that the flue was probably closed. So, no escaping before their little task was done. Of course, a witch that could shrink him and give him a set of wings and pointy ears could probably track him down no problem.

He looked over at the grain pile. As per the plan, one team of mice was gathering in all the stray grains, and and a larger team were working on the big pile. Padalecki directed the gangs of mice, keeping them moving back and forth in steady, albeit furry, streams between the main pile and whatever sub-pile they'd been assigned to.

The cat shot him a dirty look, then hopped up on the counter to drink from the washbasin.

"This isn't over, treat!" it snarled.

"Damn straight it's not, furbrain!" he called back. He took advantage of the opportunity to flit down to the work in progress. "How's it going?"

"Slow, but picking up speed." Padalecki looked around with pride at the workers. "Skitter and Scurry are checking grains before they leave the main pile, Lady Gnaw is checking grains that are coming in to the moldy pile, Spooks-the-Horses is checking the rye before it goes in its pile, Whiskertwitch is doing the same for the wheat, and Craps-in-the-Pantry is checking to make sure we don't miss any of the grains that scattered. I'm dealing with any issues that come up." He actually sounded as if he was having fun, despite the boring-assness of the work and the threat of breaddom hanging over their heads.

"Wow. That's a lot of checking."

"Yes, because our lives depend on us getting this right!" Padalecki snapped. Jensen held up his hands to ward off any more self-righteous ranting.

"No, no, it's good. I wasn't criticizing, honest. Mom always double-checks any herbs before she puts them into a tea or a tincture, even if she was the one that picked 'em and labeled 'em. You give someone foxglove when you meant to give 'em feverfew?" He whistled low, to indicate disaster. Of course, foxglove and feverfew didn't look a damn thing alike, but he felt the alliteration had more impact than botanical accuracy would have.

That got him another of those half-smiles, one of the ones that got Jensen thinking that if times were better, maybe he could find a way to get past the Daybreak thing. 

_Maybe._ But then there was the whole thing with Gen, and there were no maybes about that. 

At least they could get along decently enough to try to get each other out of this alive.

"All right. My turn with the cat, I guess," Padalecki said, sounding very much less than thrilled.

"I'll keep an eye on things down here." Down here in dullsville. At least he didn't have to do any of the sorting himself, because that would not end well.

Up on the counter, the cat finished pawing water from its whiskers, then gazed down at them. It flowed down from the table, landing soundlessly on the floor, and sauntered towards them, tail wafting to and fro. 

"We play? I hunt? Are you ready, treats?" Sauntering turned to delighted bounding as Padalecki took to the air. "Oho! The big treat flies! What fun!"

Padalecki cried out as the cat nearly swiped him from the air. He made it up to the rafters, but it was too far for the cat to jump. Jensen poised himself to take to the air, because if Padalecki didn't keep the cat's attention, the cat's attention would go back to the mice.

"Jensen! Keep your mind on what you're supposed to be doing!" Lady Gnaw chided, as she chivvied two young mice back to their jobs. "Skitter! Scurry! Stop flirting with the young bucks and keep your eye on the work, y'daft lassies!"

The mice needed constant attention, and there was only so much Gnaw could do on her own to keep them in line. Some of the rye crew forgot that rye was pointy and had to be shown the difference over again. Jensen hoped _he_ was getting it right. The younger mice kept asking and kept having to be told over and over again that no, they could NOT eat the not-moldy grain, yeah, he knew it was sweeter, but suck it up and do as you're told, kid. Lady Gnaw eventually had to step in and send some of them back to the lair. Jensen just hoped that nothing had gotten eaten that wasn't supposed to be. The witch would probably know if even a single grain was missing.

When he could spare the attention, he looked to see how Padalecki was doing. He was leading the cat back and forth in long arcs, but the cat seemed to be tiring of the game. Probably because Padalecki was going back and forth from the mantel to the table, the mantel to the table, over and over again, the same damned thing . He also seemed to be hesitating more and more to take off each time, and the swoops were getting wobblier. Jensen remembered how he'd looked when he'd flown down from the table. 

"Your friend needs help," Lady Gnaw said.

"He's not - " Jensen started automatically, then he hissed as the cat nearly got Padalecki, who saved himself from a terminal haircut only with some furious backwinging. "Yeah, he does. I'll bail him out. Get everyone under cover for a sec, okay?"

Lady Gnaw called out for her people to fall back, and the hoard of mice streamed back under the cupboard and into cracks in the wall. Jensen flitted up to where Padalecki was wheezing for breath up on the table. 

"C'mon. The cat can get up here no problem. Let's go to the top of the shelf over there."

Padalecki flew off, covering much more distance with each wingbeat than Jensen could even though he was shaky and wobbly. Something had to be wrong with Jensen's wings, but he couldn't figure out what. When he got to the shelf, Padalecki was already sitting with his knees pulled to his chest and his wings wrapped around him like a cloak.

"Sorry. It's the heights. And my stomach. It sucks to have these," he said, extending one wing as if there was nothing to the motion at all, "and not be able to use them the way I should. Flying is fun when I'm not too far up. Or swooping. It _should_ be fun, shouldn't it?"

Part of him enjoyed seeing this kind of comeuppance, but another part of him felt sorry for the poor bastard. It was probably due to his mother's inconvenient influence on his conscience. "Want me to see if there's some ginger root on the shelf?"

Padalecki shook his head. "No. But I don't think I can keep the cat away from the mice like this. I feel awful about this, but can you...?"

Jensen nodded, trying not to show his relief. Cat-baiting was more his thing than overseeing a grain-sorting operation. "I guess," he said, hoping he sounded diffident enough. "I'll take on the cat, and you go stay safe and cozy with the mice, okay?"

He hopped backwards off the shelf and into mid-air, feeling smug that he could do so, and - surprisingly - a little guilty for feeling smug.

The cat leapt up at him, and once again he flitted back just in time, laughing joyfully at the adrenaline rush. The cat focused on him more than it had on Padalecki, but then, Jensen was familiar with cats and knew how they played and what would hold their interest. He would dive in arcs and then jitter back and forth. Then he would hold still on the edge of the table, slowly wafting his wings and waiting for the butt-wiggle to begin.

Every now and again, the cat would tire out, and with a cranky _mrrrt_ , hop up to drink from the washbasin. When he could get away with it, Jensen did the same. At last, he was up on the counter at the same time as the cat, perfectly safe as the cat was flopped out on the other side of the basin, its sides heaving like a bellows. 

"Had enough?" Jensen asked. He hoped the answer was 'yes,' because he was exhausted.

"Hungry..." the cat wailed. Jensen knew that kind of piteous sound. Kenzie's cats had been making it a lot, lately, and his heart broke every time he heard it because he knew it broke her heart. He didn't want to think about what might happen to her precious babies over the winter if something didn't change and change fast.

"Me too, buddy," Jensen said. Then, something occurred to him. The witch had said they could help themselves to any food they found, right? He looked up to the rafters, and reached for his knife. "Hey - do you like sausage?"

The cat's ears pricked forward. "Tasty sausage? Oh, yes! I would like some food that doesn't run away. Or fly," it added with a pointed look at Jensen.

Jensen jabbed his knife towards one of the ropes of sausages hanging from the rafters. "Then how 'bout I cut one of those down for you, and you don't chase me for a while?"

"Yes, yes. Good. No chasing. Just resting." It yawned, then licked its chops. "And eating."

"Awesome. This won't take long." He flew up and cut through the join between the links. The sausage plopped to the ground. A couple of mice looked over with interest, then shrieked as they saw the cat padding towards the sausage.

The cat tore through the casing but nibbled delicately at the sausage inside. Its purrs rumbled like a thunderstorm. It paid no attention to the mice.

"Good thinking." Padalecki fluttered over. A distance of a few feet off the ground didn't seem to faze him. "What did you offer in exchange for the sausage?"

"Uh, not being chased?"

Padalecki studied the cat for a moment. It had already devoured over half the sausage. The nibbling was delicate, but it was also fast. "It'll still be hungry after that, I bet."

Jensen shrugged. "So I cut down another sausage. There's at least four more up there."

Padalecki thought a while longer. "No... I've got another idea. Excuse me, Mister Cat? Or is it Miss?"

Jensen would have teased him for not knowing the difference, but honestly, the cat was too fluffy to tell.

"Mister," the cat said between bites. "No Misses around these days. Very sad."

"Do you have a name?"

The cat actually sneered. "Why? I am me, and that is all that matters. Other people call me something, maybe I come, more often I stay where I am. I am me, and I do what I want."

"Cat philosophy in a nutshell," Jensen muttered. He scowled when Padalecki shushed him.

"Do you want to eat?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Do you want more sausages?"

The cat purred loudly, its eyes at half mast.

"If I ask you to promise something, will you do it?"

The cat thought about it for a moment. "Yes. If it is something I want to do."

Padalecki paused for a moment, obviously trying to put the right words together in the right way. "If you promise not to eat me, my friend, or any of the mice, and let us do our work undisrupted until after daybreak, my friend will cut you down another sausage."

"I'm not your - " Jensen started, but Padalecki nailed him in the shin with a freakishly accurate backwards kick.

"Two sausages," the cat countered.

Padalecki made a show of thinking about it, but Jensen could see from the gleam in his eye that the cat was playing right into whatever Padalecki's scheme was. No surprise, there - the entire family was known for striking hard bargains and having people walk away feeling like they'd gotten a deal.

"We can do that. One now - " The cat mewled in delight. " - and the other _after_ we're done and the second servant arrives."

The cat thought, and Jensen did not like the Padalecki-ish gleam in its eye. "Then between two sausages, I want to play! Not eat, but play!" He was, of course, looking right at Jensen as he said this. 

Padalecki started to agree, then glanced over at Jensen for confirmation. Jensen nodded.

"Then it's a deal!"

Jensen flew up and, good as his word, cut down a second sausage. The cat ate this one a little more slowly, and only wanted to play for another fifteen minutes or so before flopping down to watch the mice go back and forth and back and forth. Jensen, who was also completely wiped out, flopped down on the cat's shoulder. He tried lying down on his back, but that was so amazingly uncomfortable he decided he'd never try that again. 

The mice continued their work, and Padalecki kept tweaking the process so the sorting went faster and faster. 

"Man, that's hypnotic."

"Mmm-hmm," the cat agreed.

He had to laugh. Here he was, living the Nightfallen stereotype, lazing around like a bum while a Daybreaker did all the work. Well, he'd done his share of work, earlier, the stuff he was good at. Whatever Padalecki had the mice doing, there was no way in hell he'd do anything but mess it up, so they were better off if he stayed out of the way.

"Teamwork through napping," he murmured, but the cat was already asleep, and the rise and fall of its chest soon lulled him into his own sleep.

He woke a little while later, when someone threw a moldy rye grain at his head. He knew it was rye because it was pointy.

"Rise and shine. The sky's getting lighter, and no one got eaten." 

Jensen sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The cat stretch-yawned and flexed one paw, then went back to sleep. "Yeah, well, that's because I was guarding the cat."

"I can see that."

Jensen tried to think of a retort, but somewhere in the trying, figured out that Padalecki had sounded more amused than prissy and decided it wasn't worth the effort.

"We done?"

Padalecki was sitting cross-legged on the floor. One mouse was curled up next to his side, Another was on its back and getting a belly rub. One little leg twitched in pleasure like a dog's. Padalecki waved his free arm at the two piles of grain on the floor. A third pile was being ferried cheekful by cheekful back into the mice's lair. "We're done!"

Jensen stood and stretched, then flitted down to join Padalecki. The other man was grinning down at Skitter (or was it Scurry?), delighted at how much the animal was enjoying the skritches. Jensen remembered something about him missing his dogs.

"Those two really like you, huh?"

"Yeah, they're awesome," he said. "This is going to sound strange, but I'm going to miss these guys."

"And we'll miss you," piped the one who was curled up. "I want a belly rub too, Jared."

"You got it, princess."

Jensen couldn't help smiling. "Man. You're a real ladykiller, all right." 

He regretted it the instant he saw the stricken look on Padalecki's face. He wasn't sure why he regretted it - it was a valid and well-deserved jab - but he did.

"Shit. I'm sorry. That came out wrong." He rubbed his mouth as if that would scrub away the words. "I was... I'm not sure what I was trying to say, but it wasn't anything bad."

Strickenness faded to mild suspicion. "If you say so." He cleared his throat. "Good job with the cat."

"Thanks." Jensen couldn't think of anything to say that would get them out of the big ball of awkward he'd just tangled them in.

Padalecki was the one who broke the silence in the end. "We both did good work. And..." Again, he seemed to test out his words against each other before uttering them. "It was like something out of a story. Do you think you might write a song about it one day?"

Jensen boggled at him. "Uh, maybe?" But his mind was already plucking together bits that could be a catchy refrain about the up and down and back and forth and wild ride of the cat chase.

It was the first time in weeks that a tune had just popped into his head like that. He hoped he remembered it, and that it didn't just fade away like one of those dreams you were _sure_ you would remember but that was always gone by lunchtime.

"Harvest Moon festival, maybe?" The hope in his voice actually sounded kind of not-too-fake.

"That's assuming we survive, Padalecki."

That earned a sigh. "Call me Jared, all right. I think being transformed into little fairy things and nearly being eaten by a cat warrants a first name basis."

Jensen gave him a long cool look, holding it until the first little bits of defensiveness started to rise in the other man. "Sure. So, back to the song thing. That's assuming we survive, _Jared_."

The half-smile he got was a little closer to a full smile, but then they both looked up at the same time the cat raised its head to stare at the door. The faint sound of hoofbeats could be heard in the distance as the light began to grow brighter in the windows. The candles and lanterns in the kitchen all dimmed out at the same time, fading like the last stars at dawn.

"I'd better go and cut down that sausage. I think Daybreak's nearly here."


	3. Daybreak

Jensen cut down another sausage for the cat, then returned to the floor to find Pada - _Jared_ tugging his clothes straight and brushing grain dust and mouse fur from his wings and breeches. 

_Someone_ was desperate to make a good impression. Jared's two mouse friends were crouched together behind his legs, chattering nervously. Lady Gnaw waited calmly, but Jensen suspected the Countess of the South Wall would make sure to appear unruffled in front of her children no matter what.

"It's already morning? The witch didn't come home all night," Scurry (or was it Skitter?) said. 

"That's been happening more and more and more," her sister said anxiously. "I don't like it."

"That's enough of that, you little gossips," said their mother said sharply, "Back into the lair with you."

Skitter and Scurry lived up to their names.

Lady Gnaw's whiskers drooped and her crouch became more of a slump. "They're right, alas. Something _is_ wrong and has been for a while now, but rumor will spread through the lair like a bad case of fleas if I'm not diligent. There's being careful, and then there's being paranoid, y'ken?" 

"Yeah. I ken." He'd heard a few angry whispers about how the Daybreakers were hoarding food and would be happy to let the Nightfallen just die off over the winter. The Padeleckis had been mentioned by name more than once. He kind of wanted to ask Jared what kind of rumors the Daybreakers were spreading. Misha had refused to tell him the last time they talked, saying that there weren't any rumors.

Jensen hadn't believed him. He hadn't said anything to Misha, but now he was wondering if Misha had somehow picked up on his doubt and there was a _reason_ that was the last time they had talked.

Having seen Jared with the mice, Jensen didn't _think_ he was the kind of guy who would just let someone starve or freeze. No, he'd just leave them a sobbing wreck, the more cynical part of him said. But a warm and well-fed sobbing wreck, said the part that sometimes got tired of being so damned cynical.

"When did things start going wrong? Do you remember anything in particular, or did it just start happening over time?" Jared asked, but before Lady Gnaw could pull together an answer, the hoofbeats drew to a halt outside the door. Jared stood a little taller and went a little paler. 

As for Jensen, he was thinking about how Nightfall didn't match the stories (but there was something abut her face and hair that put him in mind of candle-glow, maybe he could do something with that...), and wondered how different Daybreak would look than he? she? did in the songs. Black hair, he bet. And coal-dark eyes.

The knock on the door was less emphatic than Nightfall's, and was accompanied by a tentative _hellooo?_ Then, there was some muttering that Jensen suspected accompanied a search for the spare key above the door. Jensen struggled to hold in a laugh as he heard the clank of a key hitting the ground.

"Oh, _bother_." 

Jared looked pained. Lady Gnaw pawed comfortingly at his leg, leaving dusty pawprints on the cloth he had so carefully brushed clean a few minutes before.

There was some fumbling with the lock, and some more frustrated muttering. Definitely a woman, Jensen thought, with a quiet, wispy sort of voice. Wispy and quiet, but far from weak.

The door finally opened, which was a good thing, because Jared was so wound up Jensen thought he was about to turn himself inside-out.

Daybreak opened the door a crack and poked her head inside. "Hello-oo? Are you two in here?"

Her hair wasn't black, but it wasn't blonde, either. It was long, and a dark red that stood in striking contrast to very pale skin. The skin under her eyes looked a little smudged in a way Jensen knew well from experience (but certainly not enough experience to have a _reputation_ ).

"Down here!" Jensen called, because Jared was being a lump.

She looked down blearily, not quite focusing, but then smiled a wide, bright smile. The smudges under her eyes lessened, and the warm brown of them shone. Nightfall hadn't smiled, Jensen thought glumly. "Oh! There you are! Aren't you two adorable!"

On the plus side, Nightfall hadn't called them adorable, either.

She came the rest of the way inside, closing the door behind her. "I'm glad to see you completed your task in time." She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn, then smacked her lips a few times in a way Jensen knew from too-early mornings. "I wasn't looking forward to grinding you up."

"Us neither," Jared croaked.

Daybreak, unsurprisingly, looked nothing like Nightfall. For one thing, she seemed a lot younger. Heck, she looked younger than Jensen himself, not that he believed that was the case for a moment. Also, she didn't stride into the room like a sheriff looking for a tavern brawl. She just carelessly shuffled in, not really looking where she was going. Instead of padded black leather and canvas, she wore flowing, gauzy white trimmed with ribbon and lace, and just a few pieces of silver and gold filigree armor that, while obviously very well-crafted, wouldn't have stopped a rotten tomato, let alone an arrow.

For some reason, she also held a very large mug in one hand. It had a smiling sun painted on it.

The longer she was in the room, the more the warm silver light of morning filled it. Yawning, she eased herself into a cross-legged position in front of the two men, the white silk of her embroidered tunic making a hammock between her knees. Jensen thought of lazy mornings and having a lie-in with morning sunbeams warm across clean white sheets. The cat, choosing hedonism over the fear of strange gods in the kitchen, slunk out from behind the churn and stretched out across Daybreak's lap as if it were the ultimate sunny spot.

Daybreak took a long pull from her mug and stroked the cat.

"Go on, say something!" Jensen hissed at Jared.

Jared just shook his head emphatically. 

"She's YOUR patron, and unlike mine, she doesn't have a stick up her butt!"

He wasn't bitter about that lack of farewell before leaving them to an impossible task. No, not at all.

" _Jensen!_ "

Daybreak put down her mug. "There is not enough tea in the world this morning." She yawned. "Oh, who am I kidding. There's _never_ enough tea! There was something I was supposed to do... oh, yes. The letter. I'm supposed to give it to the one of you who's one of my people and that feels like too many 'one of's. Hold on a moment..."

She opened a filigree-encased yellow bag that hung from her waist. She pulled out a letter identical to the one they got from Nightfall, and put it down in front of Jensen.

Jared cleared his throat and raised his hand. "Actually, ma'am, that would be me."

She blinked a few times. "Really? Are you sure?"

Jared's sigh sounded a lot like Nightfall's, not that Jensen would ever tell him that (unless really, really tempted). "Yes, I was born to the Daylight sect, and can trace my ancestry back as such on both sides to the days of Perun and Veles."

Well lah-di-fucking-dah.

"Oh, _those_ two." Daybreak wrinkled her nose. "Storm gods and trickster gods, ugh. I don't miss them one tiny bit. Anyhow, here you go."

She put the letter in front of Jared. After watching him struggle with the seal for a few seconds, Jensen offered his knife. He even offered it hilt-first, because he was nice like that.

**Dear Jared and Jensen,**

**I hope this letter finds you well. If not, I promise I will serve you up with my best apricot jam.**

Jared said some words that Jensen was surprised he even knew.

**What would your mother say, Jared? I hope you are showing your patron goddess some proper respect. Anyhow, if you are reading this, congratulations on completing your first task! Are you excited? I know I'm excited!**

"That's one word for it," Jensen muttered. "What's the next task, lady?"

**Now, just because we're excited, that's no reason to be rude. Because you completed your first task, your captivity in my house is ending. But you still must complete two more tasks if you don't want to become baguettes. And if you would like to be un-transformed and un-shrunk. Daybreak will give you the instructions for your second task. She and her horse will also transport you to and from the site of the task as needed.**

"Wait! I what?" Daybreak shrieked. "She never told me that!"

**I am sure she knows that there is no way you would be able to get to the Golden Mountain and back before noon tomorrow. Which, by the way, is your deadline. **

**You know what happens if you fail.**

**Sincerely,  
The Witch**

"How come Amanda gets to do the dump-and-run?" Daylight stared into her cup and pouted at the emptiness.

"Amanda?" Jared asked.

Daylight shooed the cat from her lap and stood up. Fortunately for the smaller inhabitants of the room, the cat decided to sulk back to its hiding place behind the churn. "My younger older sister. The one you already met. Of course _she_ gets the milk-run assignments. I get the 'development opportunities.' Do you have any idea how far away the Golden Mountain is? You don't mind if I make some tea while I give you your instructions, do you?"

Jared said of course he didn't mind. Jensen was still trying to get his head around the fact that Nightfall was named 'Amanda.' If he had guessed, it would be first name, Night, last name Fall. 

So many edits to _so_ many songs...

He was going to have a long, long talk with Jason once this was over. Assuming he survived. _And_ assuming Jason was still talking to him. Jensen could barely remember the last time they _had_ talked. Had they parted on good terms, bad terms, iffy terms? Jason hadn't exactly sought him out, and Jensen wasn't sure what that meant, so wasn't about to do the seeking himself, but he'd have to, soon, if they wanted to start rehearsing for the festival. 

Assuming there would be rehearsals. He'd never imagined there would ever be a time when he the flutter in his stomach about the Harvest Moon festival would be _dread_.

He shut his eyes, wishing that when he opened them, it would be one year earlier. Sweet Night, how was it possible that everything could get so fucked up so fast? Jensen wasn't sure what scared him more - learning the reason or learning that there _wasn't_ a reason.

Enough of that. He pulled his attention back to whatever Daylight was saying, which fortunately for him, wasn't much more important than 'where did she put the tea _this_ time?'

"Ah! There it is!" She filled two tea balls with loose tea, and put them in her cup. Next, she picked up the pitcher and held her hand over the cup. Her hand glowed like a miniature sun and steam rose as she poured the water and let it run between her fingers.

"Huh. That's handy," Jensen said. 

Daybreak let out a short but musical laugh that reminded him of birdsong. The good kind of birdsong, not the obnoxious screeching that blasted him out of sleep at the asscrack of dawn. "Handy! Aw, that's cute!"

It was amazing how Jared could communicate 'please stop sharing terrible puns with my patron goddess so we can hear the details of our second task' without uttering a single word. The man truly had a gift.

Daybreak leaned against the counter, guarding her mug in both hands. "Well, for your next task, you're supposed to get a tailfeather from the Firebird."

Jensen blinked. "Wait. You mean _the_ Firebird?" Unbidden, the octave-jumping, fast-paced melody of 'The Firebird and the Stolen Prince' rippled through his head. His fingers twitched in memory of the brutal chord progression and he wondered just how many of the stories he loved were actually _real_.

And how much would he still love them if they _were_ real? That, he decided, was something he could think about much, much later.

"Mmm-hmm. She's real, all right. She's also a real sweetie. I haven't seen her since, oh, late last summer, though."

Jared let out a long _hmmm_ , but shook his head when Jensen raised an eyebrow in question.

"If she's a sweetie, then what's the challenge about getting one of her tailfeathers?" Jared asked, but Jensen suspected the question was not about whatever had made him go all thinky.

"Well, they're pretty valuable and they take a long time to regrow, so she'll want something in trade, I think."

Probably their livers, Jensen thought. That sounded about right.

"Or she'll need you to do her some kind of favor."

Like fly to the moon and back in the space of an hour to get her a special kind of birdseed. That they would then have to sort into piles.

"A task within a task," Jared muttered. "So, how long will it take us to get to the Golden Mountain?"

"Not long with my help, but we'll probably need to do the last bit on foot. I can't be riding when my sister is abroad." She took a sip of her tea, the tea balls still steeping in the cup. "That would not be good. Also, I _won't_ ride at night."

"Well, there's nearly half our time lost," Jensen said.

"Unless the Firebird's task is something that can be only done at night," Jared pointed out. "Either way , we should get started."

"I'll pack us some food, first," Daybreak said. She yawned again, then slammed back another glug of tea. "We'll have a picnic lunch when we have to stop riding."

"Your patron is offically more fun than mine," Jensen whispered. Jared kicked him in the ankle again.

Daybreak cut down a couple of sausages, and found a wheel of cheese and a bag of dried apples in the pantry. She also hacked off a big piece of wholemeal and sultana bread. "It's all right," she said, upon seeing their horrified expressions. She gave the bread a sniff. "Yup. There's no one in here."

She also pulled a jar of cherry preserves from the jelly cupboard, opened it, and helped herself to two big spoonfuls before adding the jar to their hoard. She washed it down with a mouthful of tea that was by now probably strong enough to strip paint.

All of the food and the witch's tea caddy disappeared into the filigree bag, which didn't look big enough to hold even a quarter of it. 

Daybreak patted her shoulders. "Come on up. Let's go."

Jensen snuck a quick glance at Jared, and saw the lump in his throat bob with a nervous swallow, and saw the jaw tighten with determination.

"I've got this," Jared said. "Go. I can do this."

Jensen shrugged. It wasn't his problem. And it wasn't _his_ ego at stake in front of his patron spirit/goddess/whatever. He flew up to Daybreak's left shoulder and found a spot that wasn't too spiky with filigree. Jared followed a moment later to settle on her right shoulder, gaze fixed resolutely up as he flew.

Daybreak chugged the last of her tea, stashed the mug in her bag, and took them outside. Her horse was creamy white, more gold than gray in the lowlights, and it had weirdly pale blue eyes. It looked to be the same height as Nightfall's black horse, but built for speed rather than trampling one's enemies into grits.

It was also equipped in the fanciest tack Jensen had ever seen. What leather there was, was dyed white, and much of what he would have expected to have been leather was silk and linen instead, including the reins, which were hung with gold tassels and tiny silver bells. The horse even had what looked like freaking _curtains_ over its haunches, in multiple shades of soft white with a sunrise motif. 

He'd known roughly what 'caparisoned' meant in some of the old stories about knights and cavalry, but had always wondered what it actually looked like. Now he knew.

Daybreak swung herself into the saddle, and Jensen had to cling to her hair to keep from getting launched. A yelp from the other side of Daybreak's head told him that the same had nearly happened to Jared.

He maneuvered himself close to her ear. "Jared doesn't like heights," he whispered. "He might barf in your hair."

She couldn't say anything without Jared hearing, but her eye turned in his direction and she nodded.

"Sorry!" she said at the resulting _eep_ from Jared. "Why don't you ride down on the pommel? You'll be jostled less there, I think."

Without waiting to be asked, she lifted Jared from her shoulder, his little wings flapping frantically, and placed him in front of her on the saddle's pommel. It was unusually large and had a circular indentation that was probably meant to hold a mug of tea. Whatever it was actually for, Jared could sit crosslegged in it and not be in too much danger of sliding off.

When Daybreak reached up for him, Jensen refused. "It looks like a tight fit down there. Under other circumstances, it'd be fun," he said with a waggle of his eyebrows, "but I'll give it a pass this time."

Daybreak clicked her tongue and the horse eased into the smoothest trot Jensen had ever experienced. It felt more like sledding than riding. If they happened to encounter Misha, Jensen suspected his friend would be sorely tempted to knock his patron goddess out of her saddle and steal her horse. Misha wasn't exactly what you'd call sensible at the best of times, but when it came to horses... _watch out_.

Man, he hoped that he'd be able to sit down with Misha and share this story. He'd have to survive this whole traditional three tests thing first, of course. And then maybe do something about the fact that he wasn't sure he was still on speaking terms with any of his Daybreak friends.

At least, he'd always believed they were his friends.

Jensen pushed that thought aside hard, and turned around to look at the witch's cottage before the freaky-fast trot pulled them out of sight. And yeah, maybe he wanted a few details to throw into whatever song he came up with, too.

He held a lock of Daybreak's hair (he had to think of a better description than 'red as sunrise,' he really did) to hold himself steady as he peered into the forest behind them. The cottage was hard to spot at first, given the small shrubs growing out of its thatch, and the moss climbing up its walls. But an assortment of differently shaped and many-colored windows glinted in the light Daybreak left in her wake, and he could see that the main body of the cottage was a square, stone tower that he could have mistaken for a tree. It had been added onto, with odd rooms sticking out like thatched carbuncles and breaking up the straight lines that would have made the tower easier to spot. Some were wood, one was brick, and one was wattle-and-daub. That was probably the kitchen they'd been stuck in. 

Then, as Jensen was still studying the details and trying to think of how to describe the whole crazy mess in the space of a single stanza, the whole assemblage uprooted itself - literally. It lifted from the ground, leaving bundles of roots hanging down from the edges. As it continued to lift, he saw a forest of long, yellow bird legs behind the curtain of roots. The cottage shook itself, shedding thatch this way and that, and all of the separate rooms split off from the tower. Each little room had a pair of duck legs. So did the central tower. 

There was a song cycle about a witch who lived in a hut with chicken legs - it was one of Jason's favorites, what with the clever and virtuous Daybreak heroine and all that crap - and again, Jensen had to think about what was real, what was wrong, and what it would all mean when it was all sorted out.

_Later_ , he told himself. And probably after a visit to JD's 'tannery' with as much coinage as he could scrounge together.

The tower set off in the opposite direction they were going, swaying and bobbing with each long stride. It was unhurried, but moved like something that knew exactly where it was going and exactly why it was going there. After some milling about in confused, stumbling circles, all the little rooms lined up neatly and followed mama house like architectural ducklings. At this point, Jensen would not have been surprised if they all spontaneously turned pink, did a little dance, and exploded into confetti.

He did hope that Lady Gnaw and her people were okay with all the shaking around. Maybe this was just business as usual for them, but Jensen was looking forward to being back in a house that didn't just up and waddle off to who-knows-where after you'd left for the day.

"What's going on back there?" Jared asked. 

"Eh, not much. The witch's house uprooted itself, broke part into one big house and a lot of little rooms, and they all walked away on duck legs."

Jared blinked at him a few times. "It what?"

Daybreak groaned in frustration. "Aw, I missed it _again!_ You should have said something sooner!"

Jensen repeated himself for Jared's benefit, mostly because the look on his face was just that funny. He'd never admit it, but he had a bit more sympathy for Jared's decision not to try to explain their situation until Jensen had had a chance to see it for himself. "That's what happened. I need to figure out how to put it into rhyme, but that's gonna have to wait because right now I can only think of one possible rhyme for 'duck,' and I don't wanna get banned from playing the next festival."

" _Again_ ," Jared added much too cheerfully.

"Hey! It was just the one time!"

Daybreak let out another one of those birdsong laughs, but Jared did not look as smugly innocent as Jensen would have expected.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Jensen thought of that 'ladykiller' crack he'd made, and how he felt like he needed to undo it as soon as he'd said it. "It was just that the _one time_ \- "

Okay, maybe it was two times, but that first time was _completely_ Jason's fault. He snarled and folded himseslf up in a sulk.

" - c'mon, you have to admit that particular _one time_ was pretty spectacular, right?" Jared grinned in delight at the memory of what truly had been an awesomely pornographic and clever pun that had been building up for three whole stanzas, and _guh_ \- that smile... No wonder Gen had fallen so hard for the asshole despite everyone's warnings.

"Damn straight it was," Jensen said, once he'd given his libido a swift mental kick in the ass. "And I only missed the Berry Moon festival, which - who cares, right?" 

Although that meant he _had_ missed seeing the epic fight between Kim Rhodes and Osric Chau over 'blatant sect-favoritism' and 'sheer stubborn wrong-headedness' in that year's jam-judging. Apparently, Kim's paint-blistering tirade had made his little ditty in honor of the Milk Moon festival sound as innocent as a nursery rhyme in comparison. No matter - he was back proud as ever for the Long Days Moon festival, which was one of his favorites even though it was Daybreak's major holiday. 

(That particular Long Days festival was one of the best ever. He had promised up and down and back and forth to the heads of both sects that he would be perfectly well-behaved. And he was. If he'd sung a song that had certain people _assuming_ that the next word out of his mouth was going to be something other than 'punt,' 'kick,' 'lock,' or 'grass,' then who was it with the dirty mind, hm? Plus, he had had that lovely and oh-so-memorable after-festival with Tracy. 

Or was it Matt? Eh, whatever... )

"I just hope we have something to celebrate at Harvest Moon," Jared said, echoing what Jensen had been trying to avoid thinking about for months. 

Jensen just nodded, not wanting to give voice to his own thoughts. It would make them that much harder to avoid. Still, it was something of a comfort to know that Jared had been thinking the same way. In the end, it didn't matter if you were Nightfallen or a Daybreaker - if this drought kept up or one more disaster hit, they'd all be equally screwed.

"But I'm also afraid that if we _do_ have a festival, it..." Jared paused for a while. His brows drew together as he thought, and his eyes flicked to one side as if reluctant to look at whatever he was thinking about straight on. "Well, remember the Jam War? Kim and Osric?"

"Yeah," Jensen said, adding another item not to think about to the list - they way Jared's own thoughts and recollections kept lining up with his own.

"Jam?" Daybreak asked with interest. Jensen recalled how she'd downed straight spoonfuls of that stuff back at the witch's house.

"Well, that was _fun_ , even with all the yelling and all the fruit stains, you know? Kim and Osric went back to being best frenemies pretty fast, after."

Jensen nodded. They'd gotten over Kim's victory in time to team up and _finally_ knock Sam Ferris off her pickled beet throne at Thunder Moon. No one had said a word about Daybreak or Nightfall or the unprecedented joint victory - they were all just glad that someone else had finally won the damn category for a change. "Yeah, they did. So, what're you getting at?" he asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.

"From what I've been seeing of late, I'm thinking that if there was a fight at Harvest Moon, it wouldn't be... fun. Kim and Osric patched things together okay, but I don't think anything truly broke in the first place, if you know what I mean. I'm worried that someone's going to get hurt before long. And after that..." Jared slumped forward, his wings drooping to either side. "We've had lean years before, and yeah, this is bad, but I can't help thinking that there's more than that going on."

Daybreak made a low _hmmm_ that was more in agreement than surprise. Jensen and Jared exchanged _hey, did you notice that?_ looks, and Jared looked grimly satisfied about something.

"So," Jared said, "What _is_ \- "

Daybreak shook her head, and apologized to Jensen when he squawked about getting a face full of hair. " _You_ can ask your questions later, okay? Dorya's warmed up now, and we have a lot of ground to cover before noontime." 

She reached up and across for Jensen, who stepped back as far as he dared. "Don't be a silly. It won't be safe up there as fast as we'll be going - I don't want you to get blown off. By the time I notice you're gone, we'll be so far away I won't know where to start looking for you. The saddle's got protective magic on it, so you'll be safe enough on the pommel."

She held out her hand, and Jensen stepped into her cupped palm and let her lower him to the pommel. He squeezed in next to Jared, and tried not to be too obvious about keeping as much space between them as possible. Which wasn't much. Under other circumstances and in other company, this could have been fun, which just made the whole thing that much more annoying.

"C'mon, Dorya! Let's run, girl!" Daybreak leaned forward, lifting out of the saddle and resting her hands either side of the horse's neck. She clucked her tongue again, and the horse snapped from that gliding trot into something much, much faster than a gallop with absolutely no in-between.

It was too bad the horse was a mare. Misha would have given his left nutsack if he could contrive to have some foals sired by a horse like this.

Jared gasped, then put his head between his knees, hands shielding the back of his neck. Jensen also felt something flip over in his belly, but it settled after that first jolt, and it was more from thinking about getting blown of Daybreak's shoulder than from the sudden change of speed. He wasn't sure he would have survived that. As with her trot, there was no jostling, just a barely perceptible rocking in time with a four-beat gallop that came in bursts so short that the four hoofstrikes became more of a ratchet that pulsed once a second.

He expected to feel his cheeks sting and his eyes water, but there was a confounding lack of wind. The air around him roared like a storm, but all he felt was a warm, soft breeze. His hair fluttered only slightly even though trees, mountains, and entire cities were flicking past him faster and faster to the point he couldn't even start to identify them. He could see what was coming at them if he looked straight ahead, but everything had gone strangely blue and was going more towards violet as Dorya picked up speed. 

He turned to see what was behind them, which was tricky with Daybreak in the way, but he was able to lean out enough to look past her hip. He saw the dozen cities they had just zoomed past, with their onion domes, steep roofs, and spiraling towers, but they were now deep red instead of blinding blue. Weird. He hoped it was just part of the weirdness that a number of them seemed to be on fire.

Dorya tossed her head, setting her tack jingling and spraying horse-spittle as she fought against the bit, but Daylight sat back in the saddle and gently refused to let the horse have her head. 

"Not now, Dorya. Be patient, okay?"

"Hey, the more ground we cover faster, the better, right?" Jensen asked. "I'm cool with it if you want to let her run." This blue-and-red thing was neat, even if it was freaky, and he wanted to see what else would happen. Already, the horizon in front of him was starting to curve in an interesting way.

Jared moaned something that sounded plaintive and insulting at the same time. Whatever it was, it was muffled by all that hair.

"I wish we could, but we can't. Too much faster, and the daylight will become very dangerous for you two. I can't remember if it will cook you from the inside out or do something to you so your kids will be born with three eyes and a tail or something like that. Or maybe it will just melt your skin off. I forget." She sighed like a mourning dove. " _Amanda_ would know."

"Oh." He thought about that for a moment, stomach churning as he rode out an unpleasantly visceral bout of imagination. _Melting skin?_ "Slow is good."

"Anyway, we should be at the foot of the Golden Mountain just in time for our picnic, so we're making good time even without melting your skin! It would have taken you weeks to get there on your own. But that's only if you survived the journey. Hardly anyone does."

"Good to know," Jensen croaked. It would take him a while to forget about the whole melting skin thing. Or the cooking from within thing. He checked his arms and hands for any suspiciously red or blistery bits. Still, words began to set themselves to tune and rhythm in bits and pieces.

_Blue was before them_  
And red to the rear  
They rode in a blink  
What would have taken all year 

He wasn't happy about 'year,' but 'weeks' was a shitty word to end on. Hard to rhyme, and the 'ks' at the end was just awkward all around. It would need tweaking, but he felt a chorus building itself. He just wished he knew how this particular song would end.


	4. The Firebird

Dorya ran, and the world flowed past.

Soon, the only blue things coming towards them at high speed were trees, shepherds' cottages, and mountains. Then, just trees and mountains. Finally, it was nothing but mountains. Dorya flowed over gullies and cliffs as easily if they were fallen logs.

"Almost there," Daybreak caroled. Dorya didn't seem as eager to run so fast, and fell from her strange gallop into what felt like a normal one-two-three canter and then a walk. Daybreak patted her neck, and Jensen was surprised to smell the very real, everyday scent of warm horse waft over him as she drew back her hand.

The landscape seemed to glow golden around them in contrast to the blue that faded away with Dorya's gallop. Jensen had to rub at his eyes for a while before the orange after-images faded from his sight, but Jared was now sitting up and studying their surroundings methodically. What Jensen did notice was that the air was furnace-hot despite the altitude and smelled like a cross between Jim's smithy and Dani's kilns, with a few hard-boiled eggs thrown into the mix for that 'certain something.' It was also so dry that the sweat vanished the instant it appeared, keeping him reasonably cool but also making him hellaciously thirsty.

"The Golden River is somewhere near here, if I remember correctly," Daybreak said. "If not, I have a few waterskins in my bag."

Dorya picked her way across the rock, no long so sure of her footing now that she was walking like any ordinary horse. Jensen checked out their surroundings now that he was no longer seeing big blobs of orange and yellow. There was no plant life to be seen, and other than a few snags that were so weathered they looked like stone themselves, it didn't look like there ever had been. There was also very little in the way of gravel or dirt - most of the land was made of big, slanted expanses of weathered rock the color of bone. Boulders were scattered and piled everywhere, most of them easily twice as high as Dorya. Some of them seemed poised so that a single push would send one rolling down the mountain, squishing everything in its path. 

Above them, and behind the next ridge, was what had to be the Golden Mountain. It was not, of course, made of gold. Jensen knew better, but it was still a disappointment. It was just a large slab of rock jutting into the sky, as if someone had taken a flat rock shard and stabbed in into the ground at a sharp angle. Many of the lower slopes had eroded and smoothed over time, but the topmost edge looked as sharp and shiny as freshly knapped flint, and the sun glinted off the stone, turning it to gold.

There was no way Dorya could scale that kind of grade. Well, maybe if she did that magical gallop of hers, but Jensen had a sinking suspicion that this was going to involve wings, muscle-ache, and Jared-barf.

Daybreak reined Dorya to a halt. She looked anxiously up at the sky. "You two can stay in the saddle, but I have to dismount. I can't be riding now."

Jensen agreed. The pitch of the rocks made for treacherous footing. Dorya stumbled from time to time. "I think I'll give my wings a stretch." He glided off the saddle and was surprised to see Jared wing into view just below him. He seemed comfortable enough cruising around about waist-high to Daybreak. Jensen preferred to flit along at shoulder height. 

"Wait a minute," Jared said. "We left the witch's cottage just after dawn, and now the sun is nearly straight overhead. But we were only on the road for what, an hour, hour and a half at most."

"We're much, much further east than when we started, so the sun is higher. Also, when you travel that fast, time gets kind of funny. I can't really explain how it works." She grimaced. "Of course, _Amanda_ could probably explain it."

"Sibling rivalry, huh?" Jensen laughed even though it wasn't funny at all. "I guess that explains why Nightfall and Daybreak - I mean us folk, like me and Jared - are always at each other's throats. Symbolism."

"It hasn't always been _that_ bad," Jared snapped. "You of all people should know that - you never seemed to care _who_ you were friends with until this spring!"

Daybreak looked at Jensen in shock. "Oh, no. That's not it at _all_ ," she said before Jensen could think of something good to snap back at Jared. "You people were never meant to be at odds with each other. I mean, not any more than most siblings are."

Jared let out a loud _huh_ , then brought himself up to Jensen-height with two strong flaps of his wings (and Jensen was really going to have to learn how to do that instead of this constant and exhausting flutter-flutter-flutter).

He opened his mouth as if to let fly with a self-righteous rant, then apparently remembered who he was speaking to. He visibly collected himself, going pale despite the heat and clearing his throat. "I don't mean any disrespect, but I've got several questions. First of all - "

"I can answer three."

"What?"

Daybreak held up three fingers. "I can answer three questions for you. Those are the rules." She gave a wry smile. "There are _lots_ of rules, in case you haven't guessed. Rules about what we can and cannot say, can and cannot do. You can't imagine the chaos if certain people could just go around doing what they wanted."

Jared's brow furrowed, and his mouth drew into that thin, hard line that Jensen now recognized as a Jared-frown. "I'll need to think this over."

"Think of six questions," Jensen said. He wouldn't say so out loud, of course, but Jared was better at the thinky stuff than he was. "You can ask three, and then I'll ask the other three. Deal?"

Before Jared could answer, Daybreak shook her head. "Sorry. Nightfall would have answered three of _your_ questions, Jensen. I can only answer Jared's."

This time, it was Jensen's turn to shriek _what?_ "She never told me I had three questions!"

"Typical," Daybreak sighed. Dorya snorted as if in agreement with her mistress. "She probably just didn't want to be bothered. She's not exactly patient with people she doesn't think are as smart as she is," she said, and there were dozens of family stories shelved away in that resigned tone.

"Hold on - I'm pretty sure we asked you a few questions before, and you answered just fine. I'm pretty sure Jared asked at least - "

"Would you _shut up?_ " Jared hissed.

Daybreak fixed him with a look that chilled him despite the hot air and blazing sun, and he remembered how bone-deep cold the dawn mist could be during Hunger Moon when he went out to check his traps. "We were just having a conversation, right?" she said, loudly enough that Jensen wondered who might be around to eavesdrop. "The rules say that Jared can pose three questions - three _deliberate_ questions - and I must answer them. Deliberately. Well, if it's something I'm allowed to say, of course."

Of course.

"Does he - " Jensen thought about all sorts of stories where the question thing got very, very tricky indeed. He could think of at least seventeen different ways various shepherdesses, princes, knights, knaves, and queens had gotten around some pretty tight restrictions. "Hold on! He gets a freebie if you can't answer something! Otherwise, you're not answering three questions!"

She paused for a moment, and there was that brilliant smile again, like a Berry Moon sunrise. It was the sort of smile that made him wish that she wasn't a goddess, and especially not the goddess of his rival sect. 

Except, from the sound of things, they weren't _meant_ to be rivals. Jensen tried to think of any stories or songs that mentioned something about how or why the two sects were created, but every tune and tale that came to mind took the sects' existence as a given.

"I think that's only fair," she said gratefully. "When we - "

She stopped and held up her hand for silence. Jared glided to rest atop a rock, but Jensen had no trouble hovering in place. He held his breath so he could listen better, and then he heard it - the whisper of a stream running somewhere not far from here. It had been far too long since he'd heard anything like that. After the flash floods of Thunder Moon, the nearby streams and creeks had soon dried and dwindled to something that was more mud than water.

They took off towards the water, and they soon saw it, sparkling in the sun. Something about it though, stung more than dazzled. This light was _sharp_. Maybe it was the air up there. Maybe it was something else. The eggy smell was even stronger here, and the underlying smithy-smell had turned distincly coppery.

Daybreak led Dorya to the water, but she paused as if thinking better about it. She waited. Dorya was thirsty, though, and didn't want to wait. She lowered her head and walked to the stream, ears pricked forward eagerly. She got her muzzle a few inches away from the water and then her head snaked back, nostrils flared and ears plastered to her neck. Her eyes were half-white, they were rolled so far back. Her weight sank back on her haunches, and her front hooves clattered and stabbed at the ground as she hauled against her reins. Jensen had hung around Misha's place often enough that he didn't even have to think before winging back out of the way. You did _not_ mess around with a horse when it was acting like that. Jared, good farm boy that he was, was just as quick to get the hell out of kicking or biting distance. 

Daybreak was fast enough to grab the reins, but she struggled to hold on as Dorya tried to rear up and twist away. All the bells and spangles on the tack were jangling enough to drive anyone mad. Daybreak said something that Jensen couldn't hear, and she was looking at the stream when she said it.

Daybreak had to stroke Dorya's neck for a good five minutes before the horse calmed down enough to be led away safely. "Let's have our lunch somewhere else," she said shakily. "The water's a bit off."

"Just a _bit_ ," Jensen muttered. Jared gave him a quick look out of the corner of his eye, but it wasn't judgy at all. Jensen wasn't sure _what_ to make of it.

They set up camp at the base of the Golden Mountain. Before they did anything else, Daybreak gave poor Dorya some water straight out of a waterskin. Jensen thought he heard the horse whisper a 'thank you.'

He grinned. Even though the day, had been a bundle of suck for the most part, it still had some pretty awesome moments. Like talking animals. That was cool. "Hey! Dorya, you can talk?"

Dorya twitched an ear to the side, which had the feel of someone averting her eyes. "Yes," she said in a soft, sweet voice. She turned so her rump was facing them and that was apparently that. Daybreak gave Jensen one of those surprisingly chilly looks of hers.

He muttered a _sorry_ , even though he wasn't sure what he had done wrong, or if it was a horse thing or just a Dorya thing.

"Well, let's eat!" Daybreak said, back to being wispily cheerful again, just like that.

She pulled out all the food she'd taken from the witch's cottage, another waterskin, a blanket, a small kettle, a thimble, and even a measure of grain for Dorya (which had better not have come from the the piles they'd sorted for their first task). Within a few moments, she had a cozy little spot set up for them on the east side of a boulder. Jensen and Jared were able to drink their fill from a single thimbleful of water passed back and forth between them. The sausage and cheese were almost too rich after a summer of eating what could be salvaged of last winter's root crop, but neither he nor Jared was about to touch that bread.

Daybreak was more than happy to eat all the bread, slathering slice after slice in cherry preserves.

"We can set off again in about half an hour," she said. "My oldest sister should be done soon."

"Oldest - " Jared started, but cut himself short before he could ask one of his three questions. Jared hoped the not-question would get answered anyway. He'd only heard of _two_ riders. But three, three made more sense than two. Why did this occur to him only now?

"You'll meet her if you finish this trial safely. Dorya and I can get you about halfway up that peak, but you'll have to do the rest without my help."

Jensen thought about Lady Gnaw and her people, and was glad that Daybreak hadn't said 'on your own' instead of 'without my help.' But Dorya was the only other critter he'd spotted around the place, and she didn't seem like the sort who could be sweet talked.

"It will probably take you the whole rest of the day," Daybreak said as if it were no big thing and no one was risking becoming part of a sandwich in a not-fun way. But of course _she_ had nothing to worry about. "You can fly, but what you need to watch out for are the gusts of wind that spring up from out of nowhere along the east face. The way they swirl, they'll lift you up and slam you back into the rock. Also, you may have noticed, but most of the mountain up there is a sort of flint - helps with the sparks - and there are sharp bits all over the place, especially when you get right up close to the nest. She's a sweetie, like I said, but she's tired of people coming in and trying to steal her feathers."

"Great," Jensen snapped. "And at what point do we get to swim across the river full of lethal poison and duck flaming arrows?"

Daybreak bit her lip, finally looking a little bit guilty. "N-no, I don't think there are any of those things here, but she did say something about an infestation of fire serpents the last time I spoke with her."

Jensen flung his arms up in frustration accidentally knocking one of his wings and sending a flare of pain down his back. "Oh, of course! That's it! That's what was missing! Fire serpents! Why didn't _I_ think of that! That's just what this whole thing needs to make it _perfect!_ "

"Uh, you're shouting," Jared pointed out.

"And why shouldn't I be shouting, _genius_ , because all I wanted was something to eat because my entire family is pretty much fucking starving because we're almost out of turnips and already gone through our seed potatoes, and whoopsie! I'm suddenly knee-high to a ferret with pointy ears and bat wings - "

"Huh? You don't - " Jared started, but Jensen was in no mood for interruptions or corrections.

"- that don't work properly and first I nearly get eaten by a cat, and now I'm somehow hundreds of miles from home and I've got to get myself to the top of Mount Certain and Painful Death to go talk to a paranoid flaming chicken! I am trapped in a shithouse crazy version of one of my songs with - with... with you, and there's this old bat out there who wants to turn us both into crumpets because we FAIL at her oh-so-reasonable and fucking impossible requests! I think I have a _right to do some shouting!_ "

He stalked back and forth and in and out of the narrow shade of their picnic area. He delivered a vicious kick to a sultana that had fallen out of the bread, hollering at the impact and oh, wouldn't it be perfect if he capped this all off by breaking a toe on a piece of dried fruit?

He reached down to see if anything was bleeding or bent at a funny angle and stopped when he saw more of that purple glittery stuff on the back of his wrist. His mind refused to move past _purple glittery shit on my arm_ , but his body must have put a few things together because his breath was getting faster and shallower, his pulse was hammering high enough in his throat to start tickling his gag reflex, and little dark spots started dancing a reel at the edges of his vision. He had broken into a cold sweat that the heat did nothing to dissipate.

Slowly, he turned so he could see his shadow. His shadow that definitely did not have bat wings. Or bird wings. Gravity started pulling him in all sorts of interesting directions but he made himself not fall on his ass.

It also helped that Jared took him by the arm, holding him more or less vertical. "What's wrong?"

"Mirror," he rasped. "Wings. Mirror. I need a mirror!"

He heard some clanking and rustling. "I've got one!" Daybreak called out. 

She held an ornate silver hand mirror in front of Jensen. At his size, it was big enough to allow him to see his entire body, including the span of his wings.

His _butterfly_ wings. They were lavender. They were sparkly. They were frilly. They had little lacy patterns all over them. Kenzie would _love_ them.

"Curlicues." It was getting harder and harder to breathe, and the black spots grew thicker. "I've got _curlicues?_ "

They were impressive looking, if you liked that kind of thing - which he did not. They were long and purple and looked like they had been made out of spun sugar and had no value whatsoever to flight. No wonder the cat had been more interested in him than in Jared with these things boinging all over the place when he flew.

Where the hell were his super-cool bat wings? He was Nightfallen, damn it. Why did he have _butterfly?_ wings? Why did Padalecki get the good wings while he got stuck with _these?_

"Why didn't you tell me!" he wailed.

"I thought you knew! How could you not know?"

"Well, I think they're very pretty," Daybreak said. "If I had a pair of wings, I'd like them to look like yours."

"It's kind of ironic, isn't it," said Jared Enjoying-This-Way-Too-Much Padalecki. "I look like Nightfall's emblem, and you look like Daybr- _urk!_ "

Jensen got his hands completely around Jared's throat, but lost his grip when his leg was yanked up from under him and he found himself upside down and looking Daybreak straight in one very large eye.

" _Calm. Down._ "

His bones rattled the way they had when Nightfall had spoken, and he felt everything go calm. Breathing, heartrate, temper... it all started to feel sort of distant, and he felt like he'd managed to step somewhere to the side of his own body. Being upside-down probably had something to do with that, but Daybreak had just reminded him quite forcefully that she was, in fact, a very powerful goddess.

She waited a moment, and then spoke again, sounding almost human this time. "If I let you go, do you promise to behave?"

He swallowed nervously, which felt kind of awful at this angle. "Yes'm."

She did not put him down. She just let him go, leaving him to flounder and flutter his way to the ground. He stumbled a bit when he landed, and stood there for a moment, hands on his knees. 

"Are you okay?" Jared asked. "I'm... well, I'm sorry about that. I didn't think you'd - "

Jensen waved him aside. 

"I'm not okay. I want this _over_ , all right?" He wanted this _all_ over. He wanted not to worry about whether or not there would be a next meal. Was that too much to ask? He wanted not to worry about his mom. Or Kenzie. Or Dani and Gen and Jason and JD and Tracy and Aldis and Misha and Matt and Jake and Alona and all his other friends, or even just the folks he knew to say 'hi' to. 

He wanted not to worry about what this winter would be like, with all the signs pointing to it being even worse than last winter. He wanted not to worry about what would probably happen to Kenzie's cats if things got really tight. Or about the things that Aldis yelled at Misha the other week. Or what Jason had said about Osric. Or the way Misha had looked at him when Jensen had asked about rumors. Or why he had said what _he_ had said to Jake, and how close he'd come to punching the guy, and how it seemed so important then and so stupid now. Or how kids had thrown clumps of dirt at Gen the last time she went into town. 

He even wanted not to worry about Jared Padalecki, of all people.

He laughed, way too shrill and way too ragged. "Thing is, it doesn't _matter_ if we get baked into bread, you know? Not if everything's still going to be so screwed up. You were right. It's not just the crappy weather and the crappy harvest. Things are _wrong_ , and don't know why and I don't know how we can fix it, and I'm so fucking scared that everyone I love is going to die and I'm even more scared that it's not going to be hunger that's doing the killing. Helping people laugh isn't enough, because there's nothing to laugh about. Helping them dance and have a good time isn't enough. I don't know _what_ would be enough. _I don't know how to help._ " 

They were simple words, but said everything he had been trying not to think about for almost a year. If it hadn't been for the unnatural calm that was keeping him from flying completely into bits, he never would have gotten them out. Oddly, getting them out only helped the calm take greater hold and start pulling him back together.

"But... you're still going to try?" Jared asked, and the anxious hope in his voice would have broken anyone's heart. And maybe, at the same time, start putting the shards back together again.

Jensen wasn't sure if Jared was talking about the trials or doing something to help the village or both, but it didn't matter because the answer was the same no matter what.

"Damn straight I'm gonna try." He stood up straight, if a bit wobbly, and got the full force of Jared's dangerous smile. Jensen let himself enjoy it for a moment, though. There might not be enough time left to enjoy anything, so it would be stupid to pass up the chance now. He figured Gen would understand. Maybe. "So. How're we going to get this feather?"

Jared looked up the long and slope upwards. "Well, we've got help going halfway up. There are strong wind currents, right? Maybe we could use the dry tea leaves or some scraps of paper to tell us which way they're twisting - "

Daybreak cast a frantic glance at the tea caddy. She'd downed two more mugsful at lunch.

" - and maybe we can talk Dorya into helping. I would have to think there's something she would want." He paused for a moment, squinting at something high up near the sharp, sun-struck summit. "Or maybe we could just wait here for a couple of minutes?"

Jensen shaded his eyes with his hand and looked upwards. It took a moment to spot it, but there it was - a small, dark shape bouncing down from the summit at alarming speed and with no control over its direction. The mountain whirlwinds picked it up and flung it down once, twice, three times, and each time it struck the surface of the mountain, a shower of sparks exploded upwards.

They watched its erratic, sparky progress in mute, horrified wonder, and eventually heard the sounds of _OW! thump! crackle! SQUAWK!_ growing clearer and clearer as the shape grew nearer and nearer. One bounce took it especially high, accompanied by a warbling shriek of terror. It then struck an outcropping of rock at an angle that deflected it back onto the lower slope of the mountain, where the larger bounces segued into a decrescendo of _BOUNCE-BOUNCE-bounce-bounce-rollrollrollrollTHUD_ accompanied by showers of ash, sparks, and smoke.

The thing that landed in front of them resembled a chicken that someone had tried to roast without first going to the effort of plucking it. Its chest heaved like a tiny bellows, and Jensen could see a dull red glow in between the charred feathers.

"Aw, man..." it groaned, then belched smoke. The two men and the goddess stared at it for a moment, trying to process what they had just seen.

Jensen would never be able to play 'The Flight of the Firebird' with a straight face ever again.

Daylight clapped her hands to her mouth. "Oh, poor bunny! What happened to you?"

The Firebird, which had landed legs-up in perfect roasting position, struggled to raise its head. Bits of feather fell off, and given the amount of charring, Jensen had a queasy feeling that bits of bird were falling off, too.

"Julie? What are you doing here?" it said. Even though it was clearly weakened, its voice sounded like a golden bell. Jensen wondered what its song would sound like.

_Julie?_ Jensen mouthed at him. Jared shrugged. He'd recently found out his own patron goddess was named 'Amanda,' so 'Julie' seemed like a reasonable enough pill to swallow.

"We... my mistress... there are three trials." Daybreak was so undone that grammar was tossed aside as unnecessary cargo. "They were supposed to try get a tailfeather, but... Oh, sweetie! I am so, so sorry!"

The note hadn't said anything about what condition the feather needed to be in, but a quick glance told him that what should have been a brilliant tail ( _glowing like the sun, burning like a fire_ ) was burned completely bald, leaving just a seared nubbin of skin, fat and bone.

Jared looked at him, and he looked so lost that Jensen wanted to rest a hand on his shoulder - not out of any kind of carnal interest, but to make that lostness go away. It looked wrong. Late freeze wrong. Dry well wrong.

"It's the river," the Firebird said. "The Golden River. It's the only water I can drink without quenching my flame."

Daylight nodded. Her already pale skin looked sickly with worry and fear. "Dorya knew something was wrong with it. She wouldn't drink."

"And she suspected something was wrong," Jared whispered, nodding towards Daybreak. The lostness had turned to something harder. "She whispered something to the horse, before she led it to the water."

"I wasn't so smart. I just swooped down to pick up a mouthful of water without landing, the way I always do, and the water was in my gullet before I knew anything was wrong. I searched for a cure for months, but had to come home before I could no longer fly. My feathers," it moaned. "My beautiful, beautiful feathers!" The Firebird sighed, letting out another gout of smoke. It smelled sweet, like incense, but mixed with the not-so-pleasant smell of burnt feathers.

"They'll grow back though, right?" Jensen asked. Maybe there was some sort of magic Feather-Gro potion they could track down before noon tomorrow. Maybe Daybreak had some in that magic bag of hers.

"Eventually, but what if the sun goes out before now and then?" the bird asked. "How can you possibly relight it if I have no feathers?"

Jensen blinked. "Wait. The sun? That's a thing that can _happen?_ "

Daybreak and the Firebird - and even Dorya, damn her - gave him the classic 'how can you be so stupid and still be breathing?' look.

Okay, so all the stories agreed that the Firebird's feathers were very powerful, but this was on a whole new scale.

"Anything can happen in the next hundred years, and I'll barely even have pinfeathers by then!"

A hundred years. Great. 

They were dead. Officially, irrevocably dead. Jensen finally let himself sit down. Any of the determination he had felt a moment before was gone. What chance did he have to help the village if any chance he had to help himself had been taken away? They'd need some sort of miracle.

But, just as happened with the mice, Jared proved that smart was better than a miracle. 

"I'd like to ask two of my three questions now," he announced. "Obviously, you know quite a bit about what's going on, and I'm guessing there's a lot you _can't_ tell us."

He was careful not to phrase it as a question, but Daybreak nodded. A little bit of color was coming back into her cheeks. 

"I imagine it's something about rules, but it's also in the rules that I get to ask three questions." Jensen saw Jared hold something back, probably an automatic 'right?' that would kill one of his three questions. "And judging from those letters, the witch knows a lot - and she _knows_ what's going to happen. She _knows_ how we react and what we're about to say."

Jensen held his breath. He could see the logic forming, the pattern inevitably taking shape and telling of what was to come. It was _beautiful_.

"So, my question is..." Jared paused for a moment, and Jensen could imagine him running through the words one last time to make sure that they were absolutely right. " _What question am I supposed to ask right now that will help me and Jensen succeed in our second task?_ "

Perfect. Utterly, sublimely _perfect._

Daybreak gave one of those brilliant smiles that had Jensen halfway wishing he had the balls to desert his birth-sect. Although he did suppose Amanda was cool. In her own way. Sort of.

She reached into her yellow filigree bag and pulled out a small card. She held it in front of Jared, carefully not looking at what was on it. Then the card disappeared back into the bag, just sort of sucked in there in a way that suggested it would never, ever be coming out again.

Jared cleared his throat. "How do we re-light the Firebird's fire?"

It had nothing to do with feathers, but from the way the Firebird's eyes lit up (literally), Jensen knew it was the right question.

"It can't _be_ relit," the bird protested, but it was the protest of someone who wanted to be wrong. "The waters of the Golden River keep the fire stoked, but it's the only water that can do so and it can't re-light the fire. I have to extinguish and wait to be re-born for that to happen, which... nuh-uh. That's a thousand years I'll never get back. I'm better off waiting until everything heals up on its own." It sighed. "And that'll never happen if the river stays like it is."

Daybreak shook her head, probably more in sadness for her friend than for Jensen and Jared's pending date with an oven. "You'd need a water that catches fire and quenches thirst. I can circle the entire world in a day, but I've never seen anything like that."

_Huh?_ Jensen sat up straight. He replayed Daybreak's words in his mind. Then replayed them again.

"That doesn't help us at all!" Jared protested. "The question was supposed to help us succeed, and the answer is something that doesn't even exist!"

"I wish it did," sighed the Firebird. "My poor, poor feathers!"

"What? Sure it exists!" Jensen said, because wow, this one was a gimme. _Finally._ "I know where we can get some of that stuff, easy. By the gallon, even."

The memory of the looks they all gave him, the horse included, would be something that would warm his heart on the long, cold nights of winter.

After a flurry of explanation they hurried to get on the road so that they could cover as much ground as possible before night fell and Daybreak couldn't ride anymore. Jensen didn't ask, but he got the idea that the consequences for her riding at nightfall would be far more than Amanda getting snippy about her baby sister stepping on her turf. The one good thing was that they would be gaining a couple of hours by traveling westward. Even so, Daybreak said they'd probably be taking the last few miles with her going on foot.

Jared and Jensen rode on the pommel, and Daybreak cut off part of Dorya's butt-curtain and made a sling to hold the Firebird against her chest. Daybreak shoved as much as she could into her little yellow bag, giving top priority to the tea, mug, and kettle, and then she vaulted into the saddle and the world turned blue as Dorya launched into her time-bending gallop.

Jared hunkered down like he had before, but he seemed more thoughtful than miserable this time.

"That was some good thinking back there," Jensen told him. "I'll definitely put _that_ into some kind of story."

Jared smiled, but it wasn't his full, libido-rocking smile. It was softer, and a little sadder, and about five million times more lethal than the other one. It made Jensen want to put an arm around his shoulder and tell him - without lying - that everything was going to be okay.

Maybe in a way, it was good that Jared had shown his true colors with Sandy and Gen, because otherwise, Jensen could be falling hard. And that was something he did not do. Not ever, and certainly not with Jared Padalecki.

In a way, he could sympathize with Jared's problems with coming up with the right three questions to ask, because there was no good way to ask what he wanted to ask. In the end, thought, he didn't ask. He told.

"So. Tell me what happened with Gen."

Jared flinched, then quickly glanced up, but Daybreak's attention was on the Firebird. "Why?" he asked, and there was no hint of a smile or of the other things Jensen had seen in him over the past however long. There was just a lot of carefully controlled nothing.

"Because Gen is one of my best friends, and you hurt her. A _lot_. And I want to know why. No, scratch that. I want to know what kind of person could do something like that to her."

Jared studied him for a long time. "You talk to her a lot, right? About me?"

Jensen shrugged. "Not so much after she, you know, decided she decided she wasn't worthless scum after you'd scraped her off your shoe. We mostly talked about anything and everything _but_ you."

That got a bitter huff of a laugh, and Jared shook his head. "So she didn't tell me that she and I spoke a couple of times, after? That she tracked me down and asked me the same thing you did?"

"What?" Jensen felt his face grow hot. "There's no way. Not after what you did. And if I knew she was going to - "

There was the knowing half smile, the kind that was close to being a sneer, but Jensen didn't think he was the one being sneered at. "If you knew she was thinking about going to talk to me, you'd have told her not to waste her time, right?"

His anger didn't so much subside as settle into something that was halfway to embarrassment. "Pretty much, yeah. She didn't need any more of that particular brand of shit you were handing out. It was weeks before she would even leave the boarding house -you know that."

"I do. And did you also know that I apologized?"

Jensen scoffed. "And what? Everything was just magically all good again?" He'd seen how bad things had been. Those weren't the kind of wounds you just shrugged off after someone gave you a 'my bad!' 

Jared was quiet for a good long while, looking off into the blue. "No. They weren't. They aren't. And I doubt they ever will be. But I did tell her why I did what I did. This was about a month after we broke things off."

And a month after they broke things off was about when Gen started acting like she kind of liked being alive after all.

"So why _did_ you do what you did?"

Jared laughed again, but the bitterness of this one was tempered by something else, something softer. "Because I didn't learn my damn lesson after Sandy. Sandy was..." He looked up, and shook his head, smiling gently. "We're friends again, you now. Not best buds like you and Danneel obviously are, but friends. But when we were together, she was my princess, my muse, my... you name it. She was everything but who she was. I built up this fantasy of what our life would be like around the little bits I did know, but it wasn't my life with _Sandy_. It was a life with some Sandy-shaped thing. And when I saw through the illusion I'd built for myself?"

"You freaked."

Jared shook his head, and there was that sad smile, but a with a bit more humor in it. A laugh directed at the fool he'd been, maybe. "Yeah, I freaked. And it wasn't until years later that I started to see that the reality was a million times better than the illusion I'd spun around it. But it was too late."

It all made a sick sort of sense. It made Jensen think about the songs he didn't think he could love as much now that he knew the reality behind them. For example, the slightly charred and smelly reality hanging in a sling directly above him.

So many songs, so many edits... it felt like it would be easier to leave things the way they were, even though he knew that they were fundamentally untrue

"So with Gen? You what, did the same damn thing all over again? You know that one definition of insanity, right?" He fought not to lash out. How could he pull that kind of stunt with Gen when he _knew_ damn well how it would end?

"I didn't mean to!" he protested. "And I don't think it was exactly the same. I do think I saw _her_ , but the illusions crept in. And not just about her. I won't tell you what I thought about her because... well, I won't, because it is none of your damned business! But this time, I also started creating illusions about _me_. That I was the kind of person who could follow his heart and not his head. The kind of person who didn't have to be logical or reasonable or proper all the time. The kind of person who could take a crazy chance. Someone like..." He went quiet for a while. "The kind of person who could maybe be someone's hero."

Jensen wasn't any less angry about what Jared had done to Gen, but he thought he understood it, now. It was stupid, it was selfish, and it made complete sense. He half suspected that Jared hadn't been the only one spinning illusions. There were times when he thought that Gen was as giddy about being accepted and being part of a proper family with a proper lineage than she was about the boyfriend that went along with those things.

"So you dumped her. Or... Oh, no. You _told_ her."

Jared closed his eyes in pain, and nodded. Of course. He'd used logic, and he'd tried to be honest and fair and open and to the point. He had tried to be a _good person_. He had told Gen that he loved the idea of her, and what she had heard was that he didn't love _her_ , and that she was so unlovable that he'd so preferred a fantasy to the reality that he wanted to ditch the reality once the fantasy fell apart. He'd meant to be kind - Jensen had little doubt about that any more - but instead he had verified every dark thing Gen had believed about herself.

"I'd do it differently if I could."

"But you can't. And if you'd taken the time to get to know her, you would have known how badly that would have blown up." He punched Jared lightly in the shoulder, because the hangdog look was becoming too much to bear. It was just hard enough to make him wince, though. Because. "Well, I won't say I've forgiven you, because I've known Gen longer than I've known you, so she wins. And if anyone asks, I'll still say you're kind of an asshole, but I'll also tell them that you're not an _irredeemable_ asshole."

The broad grin that he got at that made him tempted to take back the bit about not forgiving him, because _damn_. 

"And okay, after the past day or so, I'll go ahead and say that you can be downright decent when you want. And smart, too."

"You're not so bad yourself, either," Jared said, which prompted a demand from Jensen to explain what _that_ meant, and the two of them fell into a comfortable squabbling that was punctuated by Daybreak's birdsong laughter and the occasional weak, golden bell chuckle from the Firebird.

They arrived at the village outskirts just before sunset. Daybreak dismounted, and this time she shooed Jensen and Jared off the pommel. Jared, weenie that he was, quickly re-alighted on her shoulder. Jensen prefered to hover, because it reminded him that butterfly wings were at least good for _something_. Daybreak removed Dorya's tack and put it away piece by piece into that magical yellow bag. Jensen decided he had to get one of those. It would make life so much easier the next time he bagged a deer - assuming there was a next time.

"Oh, that's much better," Dorya said. she shook as if to rid herself of the feeling of the tack. She looked up at where Jensen was hovering. "I'm sorry for being so rude earlier, but I was on duty."

It took him a moment to realize that she was speaking to him, and he wondered _why now_ , but figured it out as soon as he wondered.

"Rules, right?"

"Rules," she confirmed. She pawed at the ground a couple a few times self-consciously. "May I go, now?"

"Of course, sweetie. I'll see you just before dawn." 

Dorya vanished in a flash of light, leaving a dark, horse-shaped afterimage drifting in Jensen's vision.

"Where did she go?" Jensen asked. 

"The moon, of course," Daybreak said in a manner that made him think he'd barely dodged a 'you silly' at the end of the sentence. "So where is it we're going?"

"To a friend of mine's place. He's a 'tanner'." Jensen put the word in finger quotes. "It's a good cover for the smell. Let's cross round behind the Ferris's vineyards - fewer people that way, and I don't know about you, but having Daybreak herself show up just before Nightfall? Can you say 'declaration of war'?"

"And you also don't want anyone to see you with frilly wings and pointy ears," Jared kindly pointed out.

There was that, too. He didn't want to survive being baked into dinner rolls only to die of embarrassment when-slash-if he returned home after the third task. Whatever that was.

But he would have to face at least one person he knew while looking like a total idiot. He had thought that maybe they could just steal what they needed, and be on their way, but Jensen was not that kind of person. Even though sometimes he really wanted to be.

"Are you sure about this?" Jared whispered. He probably didn't want to be seen any more than Jensen did. Daybreak dashed from her cover behind a dilapidated toolshed to another hiding place behind an even more dilapidated outhouse. It didn't smell that much worse than the nearby tannery, but Jared started gagging.

"Yes, I'm sure. You agreed it was a good idea, when I explained, so what happened between then and now?"

"I'm not talking about that - I'm talking about me going in there with you. Maybe it's better if I don't."

"Do you really want to risk us maybe not meeting the terms of the witch's second task? We're supposed to do this shit together," Jensen hissed in response.

Jared looked like he was actually thinking it over. "I'll go in," he said, but clearly not happy about it.

"I'll vouch for you," Jensen promised, and he hoped it would be that easy when it came down to it. "Ready? Here goes nothing."

Daybreak made the final dash to the back door of the tannery, the one that JD's _real_ customers knew to go to. The front door, from what Jensen recalled, looked reasonably reputable. The signboard needed touching up, and while the path from the road to the door was a little weed-ragged around the edges, it was was free of ruts, sticks, and rocks. The roof was tidily thatched, with lighter patches declaring that here was a man who made timely repairs, and possibly even repaired things that didn't need repairing as a sign that he _cared_.

The back, though, was another story. The door hung crooked in its frame, and the steps leading up to it looked like a broken ankle waiting to happen. Broken crockery and shattered glass piled up like snowdrift along the foundations. Jensen knew from experience that if there had been any hides to spare for the tannery, the entire back yard would be lousy with crows going through the scraps for any tasty bits and scrapings. On this side, the roof was more moss than thatch, and was littered with the remains of years' worth of birds nests. On the crooked door, rather than a neatly lettered sign proclaiming "J.D. Morgan, Tanner," there was a crude painting of a jug with an apple and a sheaf of wheat.

"Here we are," Jensen said. "JD's tannery and distillery. Home to the best and most disgusting firewater in town."

Back when things were better, Dani did a good business selling ceramic bottles to JD. Some of the stuff he brewed was NOT something you wanted to put in a metal container.

"It's not disgusting. It's an acquired taste," came a low growl through an open window. Actually, not so much open as broken - and when had that happened? Despite the appearance of the steps and the door, Jensen knew damn well they were solid as a rock and proof against the worst weather. Whatever broke the window, it had to have happened recently, and not just because Jensen had seen the intact window when he was here three days before. JD hadn't had time to repair the damage, so the opening had been covered with burlap to keep out the flies. 

"Keep telling yourself that, old man, and maybe one day it'll be true." Even though things were far from being okay, the familiar exchange made things feel so much better.

"Wait. Jensen, is that you? Where the hell've you been? Your mom and Kenzie have been looking all over for you."

"Uh...."

Oh, yes. Guilt and shame. Just what he needed to round out the whole experience.

He pushed them aside as best he could (which wasn't much), and told himself he would bow and scrape and beg forgiveness as soon as he was in no danger of his mom deciding stick him in a jar with holes in the lid for his own good. Things would be bad enough at normal size.

"To make a long story short, I ran into some trouble when I went to check my traps the other night. There was this doe, and... oh, screw it. Hold on. I'll show you. You gotta see this to believe it."

Jensen took a deep breath, and told himself that it was better to get this over at once rather than drag it out. He kicked aside the burlap and flew in to land on JD's kitchen table. 

"Hi," he said, hoping the gruffness and straightforwardness distracted from the curlicues and frilly shit.

JD stared at Jensen for a good long while. Then he stared at the drink he had just poured. Then back at Jensen. Then back at the drink.

"I only had half a glass..." he whispered. "Just half."

Jensen sighed. "You're not drunk, JD. Let's just say I learned the hard way not to mess with a witch. And if you make one comment about the ears or the wings or the curly bits, so help me I'll - I'll..."

JD crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward in a way that made it very clear just how much bigger he was than Jensen now. "You'll do _what_ exactly, Ackles?"

"I'll get pouty and make you feel guilty." This was not effective. "Oh, I know. How about I never tell you how any of this -" here he gestured at the ears, the wings, the froofy bits, the whole kit and caboodle, "-happened."

JD glowered at him. "That, my friend, is a low blow. Fine. I _won't_ make any comments about how you look like a flying doily. At least I know why you sounded all squeaky. Took me a moment to recognize your voice."

Jensen gritted his teeth. He would push through this, he would get this done, he would get back to normal, and then he would do everything in his power up to and including a strategically applied stick upside the head to convince JD that he had hallucinated this entire encounter. For now, though, he would play along. "Look, I need to buy some cider from you. The double-distilled kind, if you've still got it. Oh, and by the way," he said, struck by sudden inspiration, "actually you are _completely_ drunk off your ass, and you're having a freaky dream. Remember that one you told me about? With the rabbit and the playing cards and all those bottles of shrinky-growy potions? It's kinda like that, so just roll with it, okay?"

JD looked a little skeptical, but also a little relieved. "Okay. Sure. Why not."

"Now, do you have any of that cider left or what?" He really, really hoped it wasn't 'or what.'

JD whistled low. "Yeah, I've got some left, but think about it, Jensen. Do you really want to be flying after you've had some of that stuff? It's entertaining enough trying to watch you walk."

"Ha-fuckity-ha. It's not for me, dumbass!" He turned and shouted out the window. "Hey, you three want to come in here or what? I brought you customers, JD, so don't ever say I didn't do anything for you."

"You blew up my second-best still that one time, so I'd say you've done plenty," he said, making good on his promise to never, ever let Jensen live that down, even though it was completely accidental. Well, mostly accidental. Teasing aside, he was on his feet and on his way to the door before Daybreak had a chance to knock.

"Hello," Daybreak said, just as they had rehearsed. "My name is Julie and I'm not from here."

JD's eyes went wide, as one's do when an attractive redhead shows up unexpectedly at your back door. The up-and-down look he gave her cut short with a hard blink when he reached the bundle of burnt bird strapped to her chest. "Uh, hi. And no. You aren't. From here."

It hadn't been obvious before, because it had been light out, but Daybreak was kind of glowy compared to mere mortals. So much for Jensen passing her off as a distant and possibly illegitimate cousin from somewhere vaguely east of here. Well, at least using her given name might prevent the shit-storm that would result from people finding out that Nightfall's self-declared 'most notorious quasi-illegal distiller' was the first and maybe only person in the village to be paid a visit from Daybreak herself.

"It's a long story, which I will tell you _later_. Now are you going to be an ass, or are you going to invite them in?"

JD didn't invite them in as such, but stepped aside, still staring at the beautiful, glowy redhead. He nearly closed the door in Jared's face.

"Hey!" Jensen and Jared both called out.

"What?" he said, gesturing at the door. "A damn bat nearly flew in here. You know what a pain they are to get back outside. And they crap all over everything."

Jensen made a point of flapping his not-at-all-doily-like wings.

"Oh. Right." JD re-opened the door, and Jared came in, flying just at the right height to give JD the stink-eye.

JD gave it right back. "Oh. Great. Hold on a moment and let me get the fly-swatter."

"Aw c'mon, JD! You know the Padaleckis let you have their windfall apples for super double-cheap!"

Jared landed on the table right behind Jensen, and Jensen could hear the ragged breathing, but at least it didn't sound like he wanted to puke.

"So? It's not like there's going to be any windfall apples this year, and if there were, you know I'd never see them. You know the damn Daybreakers are only looking out for their own right now."

"But that's not how it's supposed to be!" Daybreak protested. Her eyes were wide and bright, and her voice cracked, and it was hard to believe she was probably as old as the sun itself. She hugged the Firebird gently to her, paying no heed to the bits of char that fell to JD's floor. Jensen did pay heed, and they drew his attention to the shards of glass still on the floor. Jared was already looking at them, clearly being all thinky about it.

"Then how _is_ it supposed to be?" JD asked, and there was an edge of nastiness to his voice that Jensen had never heard there before. And maybe JD had never noticed it before, either, because as soon as the words came out, he went pale beneath his two-day stubble. "Shit. I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from, ma'am. Julie. That was... like I said, I don't know where that came from."

"Neither do I!"Daybreak exclaimed. "Daybreak and Nightfall are supposed to complement each other, not be in conflict! Well, sometimes _someone_ who is older and should know better is completely unreasonable and makes someone else cry for no good reason and then makes you feel guilty for having a well-deserved sulk, but that's not the same as not looking out for each other. You see, that same someone will _always_ be there for you with her iron sword and five black wolves when the Dragon Gorynych has swallowed your dear, sweet horse and hidden your soul inside a silver needle. And you'll always be there to rescue _her_ when the Three Winds take her to the island of Buyan and then make the island disappear because they are such horrible _jerks_... "

"Oh, they're not so bad," the Firebird said.

JD looked at his glass. Then he breathed against his own palm to try to smell his breath.

" _Long_ story, and yes, you are horrribly drunk," Jensen reminded him. "That's the Firebird, by the way."

Daybreak took a deep breath, and collected herself. She turned that beautiful, sunrise smile on the three men. " _You_ know. All those little everyday troubles that you can't or don't know how to handle yourself, but it's okay, because there is someone else there who _can_ handle them."

JD appeared dubious, but he was also - much to Jensen's amused horror - starting to look a little smitten. From the look of things, Jared had also noticed this, but with more horror and much, much less amusement.

_Please stop this before I am forced to claw my own eyes out,_ Jared pleaded with that strangely eloquent silence of his.

"Right. Jared and I were able to work together to pass the first trial - there are three, it's pass-or-die, and it's - "

"- a long story," JD finished. "Which I _do_ want to hear. In its entirety. Before I 'sober up'."

"In its entirety," Jensen promised. _And you are so going to flip out when you realize who you're perving on right now._ "But the short version is, Jared saved my bacon, and I saved his. And now you can help save both of us."

JD frowned, but bothering to hide his disbelief. But he also looked at Jared, long and consideringly.

" _Both_ of us," Jensen repeated. "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?"

JD shook his head as if clearing water from his ears. "Yeah, I at least owe it to his dad for the years of good business," he muttered, but it sounded forced and he didn't look at them as he spoke. Jensen remembered his own visceral sensation of _yuck_ when he realized who had rescued him, but that had been because of Gen. And because someone who was such an asshole had the gall to be so freaking hot.

This seemed different, though. Different the way his last conversation with Misha had been, with his accusations of rumors and Misha's flat denials, delivered with that slight fillip of contempt. Different the way his urge to knock Jake's teeth down his throat had been. And then there was the cold hesitation in his mother's eyes when he'd asked about helping out Gen - and she was well known for provided poultices and potions to all and sundry who needed them, regardless of sect and regardless of ability to pay.

"Thanks," Jared whispered to Jensen, and Jensen felt something warm and pleasant, like being praised by his mother for doing something selfless and right without prompting.

Jensen clapped his hands together, bringing things back on track. They had until noon, but he knew how conversations with JD could go, especially if he started bringing out samples. "Cider? The strongest stuff you've got - something with a real burn to it."

JD gave them a grin that boded all kinds of ill. "I've got just the thing. Hold on." He pulled back the scarred and pitted floorcloth to reveal a square cut into the floor. He lifted aside the section of floor and lowered himself into the cellar.

"He does realize that what he does is completely legal, right?" Jared asked.

"Shh. It's more fun for him this way."

A moment later, a hand poked up from the cellar hole and carefully placed a plain ceramic jug on the floor. Instead a cork, it had a glass stopper that had been fixed in place with wax. Then, JD hoisted himself up, and Jared winced along with him at the thought of what that was doing to his bum shoulder. He picked up the jug, taking great pains not to slosh it too much, and put it down on the table so gently it didn't even make a noise. He peeled away the wax and lifted away the stopper, taking a big stride back as soon as the stopper came free. The familiar sinus-perforating smell of JD's Finest filled the room. 

Jared gagged, Daylight gasped, and Jensen started salivating. So did the Firebird.

"What is _in_ that?" Jared demanded. It stung, but in a good way.

"That smells _good_..." the Firebird crooned.

Jensen licked his lips, confirming his suspicion that they were blistering. Also, his nose was running.

"Remember those peppers Osric grew, the ones that did so good even in the drought?"

Jensen nodded. "Yeah. Mom had to treat a few people who were dumb enough to eat them. Wait. You didn't..."

JD nodded proudly. "Yup. I did. I figured that if it wasn't fit to eat, it might be fit to drink. Chili-apple brandy, triple-distilled. You wanted heat, I'll give you _heat_."

"Yes! Give me some!" the Firebird demanded, flapping the featherless stubs of her wings. A few sparks went up with the soot, gouting into flame when they drifted too near the alcohol fumes.

"Sure thing, birdie!" JD put on a pair of heavy gloves he'd probably stolen from Beaver's smithy, and poured a measure of pinkish-gold liquid into a clean glass. "I knew I'd find someone who would appreciate this stuff as more than rust remover."

He held out the glass so the Firebird could dip its beak into the liquid. Everyone was holding his or her breath, and not just because of the fumes. Then, Jared's eyes went wide.

"Uh, guys? Maybe we should do this outsi-"

Everything exploded into light.

Then, it all faded to black.


	5. The Bright Red Sun

Consciousness returned with a swirl of pretty lights behind his eyelids. No, his eyes were open and the lights were flowing and waving high up in the sky, great bands of gold and red and white. But it wasn't cold enough for the Northern Lights to be shining, was it?

"Just for the record, I know damn well this isn't a dream," JD's voice came from above him. 

Jensen stared up at the sky, mesmerized by the pretty swirls. There was nothing obstructing them from view. "JD?"

"Hm?"

"Please tell me I didn't help blow up your house."

"Nah. Just a few more broken window panes. We came outside to look at the lights while waiting for you to wake up. You and Padalecki got the worst of the blast - you've been asleep most of the night. I was seeing spots for a while, and I don't think it affected Daybreak at all."

Jensen sat up, pleased to find that someone had put him in on a little cushion, but not so pleased that they had put him on his back. The wings didn't like that.

"So, she told you who she was?" 

JD nodded, and looked off to the side, a soft grin on his face. Daybreak was resting with her back against the old stump JD used for chopping firewood. She had nodded off and was sleeping deeply, her glow faintly rising and falling with each breath. To Jensen's immense relief, a long, red feather lay across her lap. It glowed brighter than she did, and things felt noticeably warmer in that diection. The feather was easily half as long as she was tall, with a center spine that was too bright to look at for more than a second at a time. Most of it was surrounded by a soft, downy glow, but the end of it was a giant roundel in every color of flame Jensen had ever seen. 

He hoped he got a chance to see the bird in its prime one of these days. It would be nice to be able to picture the legendary Firebird as something other than a singed chicken.

It took him a moment to notice, but a second cushion lay on top of the stump, and there was a small, dark shape curled up on it. Apparently, bat wings made for a nice blanket.

Daybreak made an adorable, sleepy noise and shifted without waking up. JD's grin went from soft to downright mushy.

"I don't like the look in your eyes, JD. You know what kind of trouble this could bring?"

JD shrugged. "She's nice. And not what I would have expected. She's more _our_ sort, you know?"

"Yup." And Nightfall, from what little he'd seen of her, would probably fit in better with the Daybreakers.

But then again, there were some _Daybreakers_ who didn't fit so well with the Daybreakers. Richard, for one. Misha for another, oh, so very, very much. And the same held true for some of the Nightfallen, like Lindsey or Mitch. He thought a bit more about what Daybreak had said about complements, then decided he would tuck that thought aside to think about later - not because he wanted to avoid it, but because he wanted to give it the attention it deserved.

Jensen looked up at the pretty lights, and felt a sense of rightness. "So, the Firebird's back to normal?"

"Yup. And showing off worse'n you do at a festival. The good news is, I got a regular customer out of this - one who'll pay in solid gold. From the sound of things, whatever the bird uses to stoke its flame went bad. Plus, I think it just plain liked the taste of the brandy."

High above, the Firebird made a wobbly, swoopy loop that pulsed with all kinds of interesting colors. Jensen found it strangely familiar. He thought back to the stinging fumes of the apple brandy. Osric's Death Peppers were a strong and painful top note, but Jensen recalled a touch of something a bit earthier beneath it that countered the sting of the chili and the sweet of the apple.

"JD?" 

The loop turned acid green, then dribbled down little squiggly-wiggly blobs of pink from the edges.

"Hm?"

"What did I tell you about putting those damn mushrooms in the cider?"

JD laughed, and did not sound even the slightest bit repentant.

The loops eventually faded away as the sky grew slightly lighter in the east. A glow materialized out of the air, and Dorya trotted towards her mistress. 

"Hullo," she said softly.

"Hey, Dorya. How was the moon?" Jensen asked. JD looked at him as if he'd gone crazy, but Jensen shrugged it off. If he didn't get one of those looks at least once a week, something was wrong.

"It was fine, thank you." She lipped at Daybreak's hair. "It's time to get up, now."

" _...unngh...no... fivemoreminutes..._ " Daybreak turned partway on her side, curling up like a pill bug.

Over on the stump, Jared sat up, stretching his arms and wings, and yawning. He looked down at Daybreak eagerly. Jensen couldn't blame him. Getting to see Daybreak herself ride forth and bring the sunrise? Heck, it wasn't even his patron goddess and he was excited to see what happened.

At first, nothing happened. Daybreak stayed huddled up. Dorya stood there, patiently, but with her ears turned backwards. She stamped one rear hoof.

"You didn't give her anything to drink, did you, JD?" Visions of inutterable cosmic disaster played out in his imagination.

"Nope. I figured it was safer to wait until the bird was out of town before opening any more jugs. I didn't want any more explosions."

"Good plan." His imagination breathed a sigh of relief.

The three of them watched and waited. The sky grew lighter, and soon it would be time for the sun to rise. Jensen cleared his mind, wanting to take in every detail so he could sing it back when the time was right.

Dorya gave up waiting and tugged at Daybreak's hair. Daybreak swatted feebly at the horse, but Dorya gave a hard yank, Daybreak gave a loud "ow!" and the goddess of the morning was sitting up and petulantly rubbing at the side of her head.

"It. Is. Time. To. Get. Up," Dorya whinnied.

"Tea," Daybreak muttered. She swatted around beside her for her yellow bag. She put the feather away for safekeeping and pulled out the teakettle, her mug and the tea caddy. There was much muttering and fumbling, but soon a steaming cup was brewing while Daybreak got Dorya's saddle, bridle, frills, butt-curtains, and bells all put on. JD was quick to get up and offer to help her out, and she seemed pleased to accept the help although she answered most of his questions with little grunts and mumbles.

She put the cup on the pommel and fished around in her bag. She took out and put back a variety of objects (why would she be carrying a soup tureen?) before finally pulling out the usual letter. "Here," she said blearily. She handed the letter to JD. "You open it for them. It was nice meeting you. Thank you again for what you did to help us out."

"Feel free to stop by any time, Miss Julie."

Daybreak's smile was nice, but the dark circles under her eyes killed the effect somewhat. So did the gagging noises Jared was making. Dorya stood patiently, waiting for her to mount. Daybreak took the mug, downed a big gulp of scalding hot tea, and shook herself. "Not enough tea in the _world_ ," she muttered. 

Dorya mouthed the words along with her with an air of great longsuffering.

Daybreak swung herself into the saddle, and she came a little more awake. "I was very pleased to meet _all_ of you," she said. "Jared, Jensen, thank you both so much for everything. Best of luck to you both."

Dorya pawed the ground and bowed her head, which Jensen thought was her way of saying goodbye now that she was on duty. Then, they turned and trotted off, finally breaking into a gallop and vanishing into a glow of pale gold, pink and red as the sun breached the horizon.

Something occurred to Jensen. "Hey, Jared?"

Jared was still staring off towards the rising sun. In a moment, it would be too bright to look at directly, but Jensen got the feeling he would keep his eyes on the horizon for as long as he could.

"What is it, Jensen?"

"You didn't ask your third question."

Jared smiled, and something flipped over inside Jensen's chest when he realized just how much like Daybreak's it was. "I know. But it's not like the sun doesn't rise every morning, right? I figure I'll get another chance when the time is right."

Jensen shook his head and scoffed, because he was afraid of what his face might show if he didn't. But he made sure to laugh, though, to show that everything was okay.

"She was something else, wasn't she?" JD said wistfully. "She kinda makes you feel like maybe things will be okay again, you know?"

"I know," Jared said, and his eyes went wide with pleased surprise when JD gave him a warm half-grin.

Maybe things would be okay.

"So, what's in this letter?" he asked. He popped open the seal, but instead of putting the letter down for Jensen and Jared to read, he started reading out loud.

"Dear JD. Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to read other people's mail?"

JD stared at the letter for a moment, then gingerly placed it on the ground in front of Jensen and Jared, and took a good two steps back. He didn't read any more of the letter, but he kept his eyes on it the way he might an irritable and venomous snake.

**Dear Jared and Jensen,**

**Congratulations on getting the Firebird feather! Tell JD to be sure to save me some of that spicy cider - it sure sounds yummy!**

**As you've probably figured out, you only have one more trial to go before you have paid off your debt to me. I'll warn you, this one is an especially tricky one!**

"Oh, that's just fan-fucking-tastic..."

**Now, Jensen, what kind of attitude is that to have? If you want to BE a winner, you need to THINK like a winner! The good news is, you won't have to travel far for your last trial. It's right here in town. In fact, it's right outside Jared's family's orchard! Remember that old well, Jared? The one you were told to stay away from but never did, you naughty boy? Jensen, you know it, too. You almost fell in there when you were a little boy.**

"Let me guess. When you were stealing apples?" Jared asked.

"Yes?" Jensen said with what he hoped was a winning smile.

Jared just shook his head and laughed softly. They kept reading.

**You two are so darn cute, you know that? Anyhow, be there by noon, and my third and greatest servant, the Bright Red Sun, will tell you what to do next. If you win (and remember, think like a winner!!!) the curse will be broken and you will be free!**

**I wish you both the very best. I truly do. If all goes well, I'll see you both at Harvest Moon. Jensen, I look forward to hearing you sing. Jared, you'll have to treat me to a dance.**

**And if it doesn't work out, well, we'll have lunch. So to speak.**

**Sincerely,  
The Witch**

"I am really, really starting to hate that witch," Jensen said, after making sure there wasn't a final P.S. to call him out on his comment. Fortunately, when it came to writing a song about this, 'witch' had a gloriously obvious and appropriate rhyme ready to hand. Yes, Dani would swat him upside the head _twice_ for that, but it would be worth it.

"That makes two of us," Jared said. He looked at the eastern horizon, but this time he was checking the time. "We've got about six hours to cover four miles. Funny, but right now that seems a lot longer than however many miles Dorya took us."

They may have had wings, but at their size, four miles might well have been forty. "Jensen looked up at JD. "Any chance of a lift?"

JD looked at Jared for a good long moment, but this time there was no animosity in it. "I'd be happy to, boys, but I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to take you all the way there. Jared, I hate to say it, but I'm not sure I want to see what your father's men would do if they caught me cutting through your property."

Jared was quiet long enough that Jensen was worried he'd taken offense, but the frown was a thinky frown, not a frowny frown. "I understand," he said at last. "I gather that there's no hard feelings on _your_ part?"

JD blinked. "No," he said, sounding surprised by his own declaration. "Not _now_ , there aren't."

"I see," Jared said. 

"I don't," Jensen said.

Jared gave him another one of those silent looks that said so much. This one asked for patience, that much was obvious, but there was another ask there, something a touch more desperate.

"I can take you as far as where your property borders the road into town proper. Will that work?"

Jensen looked at Jared and shrugged. It would cut a little over three miles off their trip, and that was three miles when they wouldn't have to worry about encountering a hawk, a cat, a fox or anything else bigger and hungrier than them.

"Sure," they both said at once.

"Great. And on the way there, you two can tell me all about what happened to you. First of all, did you two get to meet Nightfall?"

Their walk took not quite an hour, and it seemed even less with the telling of their story. JD was a good listener, not in that he shut up and let Jensen talk, but in that he asked all the right questions. He was also quick to tell Jensen when he was getting into the weeds and needed to let the story clip along faster. He also told Jensen to slow down, he wanted to hear more about what the witch's cottage looked like and how it split apart (and they argued a bit over the accuracy of duck legs vs. the tradition of chicken legs), and what it was like to ride so fast that everything turned blue, and what shade of blue was it, anyway?

"Don't worry. It'll sound better when I tell it at Harvest Moon," he told Jared when they got to the split-rail fence that marked the edge of the Padalecki property. "I'll have the rough edges all polished up, and Jared, I'll make sure that you and I are the handsomest devils to ever appear in a story."

"Just make sure you play up _my_ part nice and good," JD said. "Maybe shave off a few years and a few pounds while you're at it."

"Do NOT make any remarks about pretty redheads, or Jared will start screaming 'blasphemer,' and claw your eyes _ow!_ " 

He glared at Jared, who looked like he would never, _ever_ give another man's wing curlicue a good hard yank to shut him up.

"The important thing is that you make it through this, boys. I want to find out how the story ends, you hear?" JD sounded a little more gruff than usual. He shooed Jensen and Jared from his shoulder and kept on his way into town. He didn't say goodbye. 

"So, what do you think the third trial will be?" Jared asked. They settled atop of one of the split rails. They still had a long distance to cover - long for them - but they were strangely reluctant to move. One more minute, Jensen told himself.

"Oh, another impossible task - and hey, don't give me that look. I'm not just being cynical, all right? It's the way this stuff works. You get a set number of trials, right? And it's almost always three, and they're always impossible except you get unexpected help from somewhere, or you've got some sort of gift that seemed like a useless piece of shit when you first got it, or you end up doing something so stupidly kind and selfless that logic just sort of breaks and the whole universe turns itself inside out to make it up to you."

Jared nodded. "Well, we got our unexpected help from the mice, and I guess that JD's homemade firewater counts as the useless piece of shit?"

Jensen laughed long and loud at that. "I'll be sure to weave that into the story. And I'll tell him it was your idea." He looked up at the sky. It was a long ways to noon, but anything could happen between now and then, and between the fence and the well. "Okay. Let's get going. I'm a little worried about how we're going to get there safely. I haven't seen a hawk in weeks, but it doesn't mean they're not out there somewhere."

A kestrel, for example, could be hovering up so far it was barely a flyspeck, but strike so fast they would feel the talons before they ever saw the bird. Jensen's imagination was quick to supply the details of the attack, but instead of imagining a talon piercing his own belly, he felt helpless horror as he watched Jared getting punched out of the sky before he even had a chance to scream. Just a week ago, the mental image would have brought with it a dark kind of satisfaction, but not now. Not ever. He clung tight to the rail for a moment and waited for the dark spots to clear from the corners of his eyes.

Jared actually laughed, as if hawks weren't a very real thing and Jensen hadn't just imagined him being snatched away forever.

"Hey, don't be a dick! The whole point of this exercise is not to get eaten. By the witch, by some damned bird, by _anything!_ "

"Sorry, it's just that I thought of another way people in those stories sometimes get help." He grinned, eyes merry. "The old faithful friends who alway stick by you through thick and thin."

Jensen was confused, but it was a good confused. Jared considered him an old faithful friend? That was hardly true (because for one thing, he was _not_ old), but he didn't feel the urge to deny it quite so fast as he had before.

Except that wasn't what Jared had meant.

Jared flew to the top of one of the fence posts and looked out towards the distant farmhouse. He jammed two fingers in his mouth and blasted out a shrill whistle. Then another one. He waited a moment, then cupped his hands around his mouth.

"HARLEY!" He paused again to draw another deep breath. "SADIE!"

A minute passed, and Jensen heard the sound of something crashing through the dead and dying rows of squash and beans. 

"Wow! Wow! It's Jared! It's Jared!"

"Yay! Yay! Yay! He's home! He's home!"

"Joy! Joy-joy-joy! Jared! Jared-Jared-Jared!"

Jared's smile was brighter than anything they'd seen on Daybreak. "I was _hoping_ ," he said softly. "The cat and Lady Gnaw were one thing, but that was in the witch's cottage. I hoping it was something that was done to _us_."

"Yay! Jared! Yay! He's home!"

Jensen couldn't help smiling at the sheer joy in the dogs' voices. And at the joy on Jared's face.

"This almost makes it all worth it," Jared said.

Jensen didn't exactly agree, but he understood.

"Jared! Jared! Jar - SQUIRREL!"

There was a yipe, a growl of "dammit, Harley!" and then the chorus of doggie delight continued its crashing course towards them.

"Harley's not the brightest," Jared confessed in a chagrined aside. "But he means well. Anyhow, I think they'll make a pretty good escort, don't you?"

The dogs bounded into sight. They were large brown mutts, one burly with bent ears, the other sleeker with pricked ears. Jensen could see the shadow of ribs on both of them, but they didn't look starved like so many of the village strays did these days. They charged right up to the fence and nearly into it. The bent-eared one bounced around in circles while the prick-eared one stood on her hind legs with her front paws on the rail, her tail lashing furiously.

"Jared! You're here again! You smell like you again! We were worried, but now you're here so now we're not."

Jensen noticed that the dog did not comment on the wings or the change in size.

Jared reached out and patted the side of the dog's muzzle. "Good to see you too, Sadie."

"And me, me, what about me?" whined the other dog, presumably Harley.

"You, too, Harley. I - NO LICK! NO LICK!"

Jensen winged back from Sadie's whuffling black nose. "Yeah! What he said! No lick!" He was much more of a cat person than a dog person, but this was not the right occasion to say so.

"New person!" Sadie said. The nose whuffled more furiously. "You smell like a friend. Are you a friend?"

Jared looked over from where he was trying in vain to curb Harley's enthusiasm. He looked coolly amused, but there had been another expression there a moment before.

"Yeah, I guess you could say we're friends." He could say that now. They weren't best friends, and they certainly weren't old friends, but there was something there. "Good dog."

"Really? I am? Yay!"

"It's good to smell friends," Harley said, mournful as only a large, jowly dog could be. "Even friends don't smell like friends any more."

"But you smell like yourself again, Jared," Sadie reassured him. "We were worried, but now you smell okay, so now we're not."

Jared didn't look startled by this proclamation. Instead he grew solemn, his jaw setting like a cornerstone. 

"We tried to tell you, we did we did we did!" Harley whined, cringing as if expecting to be told he was a Bad Dog. "But we did it wrong! We're sorry!"

"No, Harley," Sadie said. "We tried to tell you, Jared, but you couldn't hear us. Now you can. And that is good."

"What do you mean, he didn't smell like himself?" Jensen asked. He was starting to think he knew what had been getting Jared so grim and thinky at random times. "What did he smell like?"

Sadie whined, but it sounded more like a shrug than a plea. "Sharp. Like light that was too bright. Like those things you put on the horses' paws, but all hot like they are when Jim takes them out of the fire. It smelled like he rolled in it, but we didn't know why he would roll in that when he could roll in a tasty dead rabbit instead."

"Or horse shit!" exclaimed Harley. "I like horse shit!"

"I'm sure you do," Jensen said. Yeah, he was definitely sticking with cats. He thought about the strange quality of the light on the Golden River, and the metallic tang to the air around it. He remembered how Dorya shied back from it like it was made of snakes.

"When did we start smelling strange?" Jared asked. Both dogs cocked their heads. "How long ago?"

"Before now," Sadie said patiently, as if explaining something to a not-too-bright toddler. "You smelled like yourself, then you did not for many days, and now you do again. You are here and you smell like yourself. Before is _over_. Is that not good?"

"No, it's good. It's good." Jared's jaw worked as he thought, probably wondering how to explain the measured passage of time to animals who would only knew what to do with a calendar if you slathered it in gravy and fed it to them in strips. "You're a good dog, Sadie. But does either of you remember if anything happened at the same time I started smelling bad?"

The dogs cocked their heads again. Harley whined dejectedly and flumped down on the ground, butt facing them. Jensen thought he heard a moan of "I'm a _bad_ dog. 

Sadie stared at them as if waiting for more instruction.

"Okay," said Jared, "You know how when there's a thunderstorm?" Harley howled and Jared winced. "You two start getting the shakes _before_ it starts. Why is that?"

"The air hurts," Sadie said. "Sometimes it hurts then stops hurting. Most of the time it hurts and then it becomes _loud_."

"I _hate_ it!" Harley whined.

"Did something like that happen with us? And it wasn't just me, was it? It was everyone?"

"Yes! Everyone!" Sadie thumped her tail, obviously pleased with herself. "And yes! The water smelled funny, and then everyone started smelling like the water!"

"The weather. Was it hot or was it cold? Do you remember?"

"Cold. I remember the smell of fires. They were warm. I liked them, because it was cold outside. I remember that it was the first fire I had felt in a long, long, long time."

So, probably right after last Harvest Moon, and not long before that hard and early winter punched them all in the nuts.

"Good dogs!" Jared said, and both dogs nearly went into orbit, babbling with sheer delight. 

Jensen thought he had never seen happier dogs in his life, but then Jared asked the dogs if they would carry them to the old well and both dogs nearly expired from the sheer rapture of the idea.

"Those snobby horses can _suck it!_ " Harley bayed. "We'll carry you _ever_ so much better than they could! We are good dogs!"

"Yeah! You tell those snobs a thing or two, Harley!" Jensen shouted, jabbing a fist in the air. "You're more awesome than a dozen horses!"

That earned him another one of those sunrise smiles from Jared, and he thought he understood just how those stupid dogs felt right now.

It probably only took them ten minutes to reach the well, but they had to switch dogs several times during the journey to make sure neither Harley nor Sadie felt slighted by Jared.

The old well lay on a gentle rise right on the border of the forest, and may not actually have been part of the Padalecki farm at all. It only had a single circle of uncut, unmortared stone marking its edge, from what Jensen remembered, and the brush would grow up around it so that it was hard to spot the well unless you were almost _in_ the well. As far as Jensen knew, no one ever drew water from the well. It wasn't convenient to anywhere, and everyone just assumed that it had gone dry long, long ago.

"It smells like you used to, Jared," Harley whined. "Back when you smelled wrong."

Jensen glided down from Sadie's back and walked up to the well. No one had cut the grass back from it all summer, but with the lack of rain, only a few of the hardiest weeds had gained any purchase. The stones were mostly free from overgrowth, and from the rust marks and scuffs on the stones, it looked like the grate covering the well had been removed and replaced not that long ago.

"How much to you want to bet Dorya would freak if she got a whiff of this?" Jensen asked.

"I don't take sucker bets." Jared joined Jensen on the edge of the well. They found a flat place to sit. "The timing of when Sadie and Harley first smelled things going wrong sounds like it fits with when the Golden River turned bad."

Jensen looked up at the sky. They had some time to kill before the other rider got there. "Speaking of sucker bets, what do you think the chances are that our last task involves going down this well?"

"I think it's more of a surety than a chance. The letter said you nearly fell down this thing?"

Jensen nodded. He must have been about seven years old, sneaking out of the woods and into the orchard in search of some apples. The overgrowth that year was especially high, and he almost tripped straight into the well. Only some frantic pinwheeling of his arms kept him from pitching forwards. The one thing that stuck out in his memory was the spiral carved into the rock.

He had his ass planted right in the middle of a similar symbol, this one a circle with curved lines radiating from its center to its edge. It would have been a bit too much on the nose if he had been sitting on the same spiral he remembered. From where he sat, he could see that the rocks were lousy with other carvings, mostly worn away by the weather but still visible in places. There were spirals and circles, and patterns of crossed lines that reminded him of things like teeth and trees and axes and running water and the kind of patterns the stars made in the sky. Some figures might have been animals - wolves, elk, bears, boars, eagles - all the big ones. There was even a stick figure man with some sort of crown, a spear, and a definite and generous line dangling between his little stick legs. There was also a bird thing with what might have been a woman's head and tits.

"How long has this thing been here?"

Jared shrugged. "No one knows. Dad put the grate over it after I nearly fell in when I was seven. He keeps talking about filling it up with rocks, but he never gets around to it."

Something about the well gave Jensen the feeling that it might object to being filled with rocks. He wasn't keen to see what that objection might look like.

"I'm not looking forward to going down there. If that's what it is we're supposed to do."

Jensen grunted in agreement. He went quiet for a while, staring off into the forest beyond the well. Unlike so many other places, this one was still fairly green, with living moss still covering much of a giant oak tree, and undergrowth that hadn't yet gone completely crispy. Some of his traps were just a stone's throw from here (or would be if he were at his original height and could through something more than a freaking yard). He'd figured that the greenery might attract a rabbit or two. 

And if his traps were here, that meant they weren't far at all from where he'd seen that doe. He also suspected that the trees closest to the well were the Padaleckis' apricot trees.

"What do you think you'll do, if we get through this and get back to normal, Jensen?"

Jensen scoffed. "Whaddya mean 'if?' You're supposed to 'think like a winner,' remember? Assuming we're not all at each other's throats the way we've always been, I'll go back to doing what I usually do."

He was looking forward to that so much he thought he might cry. Even the thought of helping weed the herb garden sounded like something out of a fantasy daydream.

"And what is that, exactly? I mean I know that you sing - I always look forward to hearing you play - but what else?"

Jensen felt himself instinctively bristle at the _what is that, exactly_. It could have sounded so much like a snide dismissal, with the 'that' said like someone was spitting out a toad. But Jared had leaned harder on the 'is,' and it had been a real question because he really wanted to know. 

Also, he looked forward to Jensen's singing, and that little statement cut short any temptation to bristle. After this little time spent with Jared, Jensen found himself wondering what things would have been like if Jared and Gen hadn't fucked things up so badly two years ago.

He could have had another friend. Of course, that would have gotten all screwed up when all the old Nightfallen vs. Daybreaker shit got stirred up again over the past year. Or it might have gotten screwed up when Jensen couldn't deal with the fact that he had the hots for his best friend's husband. Jared was damn fine looking, and if not for Gen, Jensen could easily imagine sidling up behind the other man, resting a hand between those ridiculously broad shoulders and suggesting that they maybe find a place to go hang out, just the two of them. And now that he'd seen it, he could also imagine that sunrise-bright smile as Jared looked over his shoulder to accept the suggestion. The fact that he was getting to know and actually start to _like_ Jared wasn't helping a bit.

Jensen cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, trying to discreetly adjust things so they didn't pinch. It had been way, _way_ too long since the last festival.

"A lot of it _is_ singing and playing. Practice, making sure I don't fuck up the stories and that I've got the memory of the notes worked into my hands. Me and Jason, sometimes we'll go to another village to swap stories and songs with the people there. Of course, it's been a while since we've done that." He wondered if they ever would again. "I help Mom out with her plants and potions, doing the heavy work in the garden and going out for foraging the stuff that likes to grow wild, but Kenzie's the one who'll take over the apothecary one day. I'm not good with people the way those two are."

"But you get along with everyone!" Jared protested. "I mean, not right now, but you've got friends in both sects, and it doesn't matter if they're tradesmen or farmers or scholars."

"Well, there's the kind of good with people that goes with fun times, and there's the kind of good with people that goes with changing oozing bandages, you know? Plus, I don't want to do the same damn thing all the time. There's always lots of odd jobs to be done between gigs. And when there's not, I hunt to bring in food and I sell what's left over."

"That sounds nice," Jared sighed.

"It does?" That was the first time he'd heard _that_. He liked his life, but knew that there were plenty of other people who thought he was shiftless, unreliable, a waste of potential, etcetera and so forth.

"Gen always said she admired how you did what you wanted, and didn't care about what anyone thought about it. Sorry - that made it sound like I was saying you were a jerk."

"You wouldn't be the first one to say it," Jensen admitted.

That got a laugh, and a quick smile. "I think you care what people think about you, or at least the people who are important to you, but you don't try to change who you are to fit what you think you're supposed to be. You don't let their assumptions define you. Gen loved and envied that about you."

That hit Jensen like a slap. He had never thought about that before. Gen, who was judged on her parentage and dismissed by people who'd never even met her. Nightfall-Daybreak romances were all well and good in songs, especially if the day-crossed lovers ended up tragically and properly dead at the end, but the songs didn't go into the fate of the inconvenient children who might be left behind after adolescent passion had burnt out.

"And based on what she said, I envied that about you, too." Jared shook his head ruefully. "I was looking forward to getting to know you. I figured you'd be part of the whole package, like some sort of weird brother-in-law."

Weird was one word for it, all right. 

"I was kind of glad when I first saw it was you, you know. Under the flowerpot? I didn't know you, but you still seemed like a friendly face."

And then Jensen had gone and torn into him as soon as he recognized him. Jared had given almost as good right back, but now Jensen recalled that there had been another expression on Jared's face right before Jensen had snapped at him.

"I guess I hadn't realized how mad you were about Gen."

"Pretty damn mad, I'll give you that." He wasn't as mad as he was before, but it would be something they'd have to work through if they got through all of this. "And from what you said, I gather you're not a fan of my 'reputation'?"

It was amazing how very, very red the tips of those pointed ears could get. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." 

"But you did. Which meant you were thinking of it. And you don't approve."

"It - it's not that," Jared stammered. "I mean, I don't get how it works, how you can go through so many men and women and not have it blow up in your face."

"It's not 'so many.' It's eleven, maybe twelve, tops, a'right? And the reason it doesn't blow up is that me and whoever it is are just in it for a good time, and we both know it's just for a little while. There's no way in hell I'd get it on with someone like Emily, who'd be picking out wedding colors the next morning."

Or someone like Jared, he thought, who probably still believed in illusions like true love and happily-ever-after.

It was not the first time Jensen wondered what it would be like to wake up next to someone and know they'd be there the next night and the next night and so on for the rest of your life. It was, however, the first time he had wondered about such things and understood why people like Gen didn't react to the idea like an animal with its leg caught in a trap.

Jared just nodded, and Jensen got the idea that there was a lot that he was not saying right then. Jensen tried to think of a way to change the subject, because thinking about Jared and sex too close to each other was provoking some inconvenient reactions.

Jared beat him to the punch though. "I think we've got maybe a couple of hours left. I know you don't have your guitar, but can you maybe just _tell_ a story?" He was clearly trying to sound calm and collected, but he reminded Jensen of the kids who would crowd up to him and Jason early in the festival to demand their favorite stories.

"Sure. Why not. How about 'The Princess Who Never Smiled'?" 

Jared, unlike the princess in the story, smiled.

Jensen followed up that story with 'The Giant Turnip,' earning a long and robust belly-laugh when he gave the helpful mouse in that tale Lady Gnaw's accent. Jensen decided he need to hear that laugh a lot more often.

The sun rose higher and higher in the sky as Jensen told one short, silly tale after another, always avoiding anything with witches, curses, and the promise of death. He picked things where cleverness was rewarded, the heroes always won, and everyone was content and happy at the end with nothing more to worry about.

Shortly before noon, Jensen finished the last tale. There might have been time for another, but their own story was about to start up again when the last rider arrived.

Up until yesterday, Jensen had never heard there was a _third_ rider, but it made sense that there would be. How many songs and stories had things come in threes, after all?

There was Nightfall.

There was Daybreak.

And now, at noon, they were going to the Bright Red Sun.

The strongest of the three goddesses, she was also the one who bridged the gap between Daybreak and Nightfall, Jensen realized. He desperately hoped there was more meaning to that than simple astronomical fact. Especially if Jared was right about what was happening to the people of their village.

He thought about the cities he had seen, and he wondered if the flames engulfing some of them really were a trick of the strange light after all.

Jared stood shoulder to shoulder with him at the edge of the old well, and Jensen had no trouble now admitting to himself that the other man's presence was the only thing keeping him from finally melting down for good. 

As for Jared, his jaw was set firm, and his eyes were fixed straight ahead, but Jensen could see and hear the nervous swallow. 

"Just one more trial. We can do this?" Jensen said.

"You do know that came out as a question, right?"

"Sorry, but I'm kind of distracted by the idea of being baked into a nice loaf of country white."

Jared turned his attention from listening for approaching hoofbeats. "Do you really think that's all this is? After what we learned about the water, and the smells? Also, think about it - we were _set up,_ Jensen. The deer? The apricots? We were baited into making attempts on her life. Why would the witch need _us_ to do these tasks for her? "

Right. And Lady Gnaw had said the witch had been acting strangely for a while. They'd also seen how sick the Firebird had been. Then, there was the whole thing with Dorya and the Golden River. Daybreak had been startled and shaken by the strength of Dorya's reaction - but not by the reaction itself.

"And there was all the stuff Daybreak _didn't_ tell us," Jensen said, figuring that Jared had spotted all the same clues he had, and had probably put them together much earlier. "And she made it obvious that she wasn't telling us."

"Right. 'Rules,' she said. She talked about rules a _lot._ " Jared's voice went a little flat and terse, something that Jensen now recognized as him becoming lost in thought rather than being a snippy, judgmental asshole.

Well, he did have his asshole moments, but then again, who didn't?

Sadie lifted her head, looking not towards the forest, but off to the hill to the east of the orchard. "Horse! Horse!" she announced, Harley echoing her a second later.

They felt the hoofbeats before they heard them. The shadows, already noon-small, faded until there were no shadows at all. Jared looked like he was glowing, the blues and violets of his clothing so jewel-bright it felt wrong that they didn't sparkle. And his eyes...

Jensen hadn't been able to pin down their exact color before, but in this noon-light they were every color - blue and brown and green and grey all together in a mix that was anything but muddy. They were what Jensen imagined opals must be like.

More than that, what staggered him was the look in those incredible eyes. The look that was being directed at _him_. 

He turned away abruptly, afraid of what might be showing in his own eyes. Besides, Jared was probably just amazed at what his sparkly-foo-foo wings looked like in the light.

The Bright Red Sun crested the hill to the east of the orchard fence, at first appearing as a dark spot amid all the light and color. They heard the drum-like beat of the heavy trot, the creak of saddle leather, and above it all, a deep, rich humming. Jensen thought he recognized the tune, but it kept shifting every time he thought he could put a name to it.

The horse was a glossy, golden-red stallion, more heavily built than Dorya but not as massive as Nightfall's horse. It was built like a working horse, one that could turn on a dime and either put on a short, blazing burst of speed or deliver a powerful kick. It had four white stockings that flashed and dazzled as it trotted towards them.

The rider was a tall woman, dark-skinned and dark-haired, but it was a dark that read as bright. It was the lush richness of fresh-turned earth in the sunlight, and it was the glow of a blue-black flower against spring green. It was the kind of darkness you got deep in the forest only on the very brightest of days, when the shadows made the colors _more_ rather than just greying them out.

She wore plain leather armor over an equally plain tunic. Her skirt was an ordinary shade of red anyone could get from onionskins and red leaves, but that was all that was plain about her. Her hair was braided tight to her head in a sort of crown, and she wore gold earrings that looked like miniature suns. She also wore a cape that was so long it covered her horse's hindquarters. It was woven in boldly patterned stripes in more shades of red and gold than Jensen had ever seen in one place. 

Some of the duller oranges and browny-golds he recognized from home dye-pots, but there were bright rose-reds and pinks verging on purple that could only have come from very expensive dyes from very far away.

She reined the horse to a halt a little ways away from the well. Harley whined and lowered his head between his paws, but Sadie gave a tentative wag.

"Hello, boys. I understand you've had a rough couple of days," she said. Her voice was low and strong and rich. She sounded as stern as Nightfall, but there was a trace of Daybreak's good humor in there as well. She gazed out over the orchard that had grown brown long before harvest. "Much more than a couple of days, I think."

"Rough? They've been put through the damn wringer, Lanette," the horse said in a deep, gloomy rumble.

"Wait a minute," Jensen stammered. "I thought you horsey types weren't supposed to talk when you were on duty! There are rules!"

"I'm not talking. Who ever heard of a talking horse?" the horse deadpanned.

"This is Svarog," the Bright Red Sun, aka Lanette, said. "He thinks he's funny. And yes, there are rules, but when you're my age, you have a better understanding of how to _use_ the rules." She lifted an eyebrow, and Jensen heard a sharp intake of breath from Jared. 

"Rules like rules against direct interference?" Jared asked. "Especially if someone else is, er, _using_ the rules?"

"Did I say you could ask questions of me?" she said archly, but the archness was belied by the crinkle at the corners of her eyes. "Anyhow, you two have some work to do if you want to lift the curse."

Again, Jared's face went sharp and thinky. Jensen wondered what he'd picked up on in Lanette's voice.

Lanette tipped her head to one side, much like Sadie or Harley might have, but in her case, it was an expression of knowing rather than confusion. "You're a smart one, aren't you? It makes me wonder what _else_ you might have figured out."

"Well we know something's hinky with the water," Jensen said, in hopes that he, too, might be called 'a smart one.' "And that it started sometime after last Harvest Moon."

"You said that because it felt important to you, didn't you? Like you recognized that certain people might be more powerful at some times of the year than at others?" Lanette asked. "You've got good instincts, little one."

Jensen wanted to protest, but he also didn't want to get incinerated. Something about The Bright Red Sun told him that this was very much an option. At least she told him he had good instincts.

She acknowledge Jared and then Jensen with a slight nod of her head. "Logic and instinct. You're each strong in one of the other, but not completely hopeless in the one that's not so strong. It's why you work well together."

"The way Daybreak and Nightfall are supposed to, right?" Jensen asked. He'd picked that much up from Daybreak's little rant. Again, he wondered if there was a reason why Nightfall seemed like your stereotypical Daybreaker, whereas Daybreak would fit in easily with the Nightfallen.

Again, he got the stern refusal to answer a question that also served as a quiet approval.

"Now, as to your final task. This well belongs to the witch, and has for more years than even I can count," she said. "It has been damaged, and she wants it fixed."

"Damaged? Damaged how?" Jared demanded.

"I cannot tell you who diverted the waters," Lanette said, and the wording of her refusal told them plenty. This had been done by _someone_. "This well is the source of the Waters of Life and the Waters of Death. I am sure that you two clever boys can figure out what happened."

"Someone blocked up the Waters of Life and let the Waters of Death run free," Svarog said, cutting to the chase. His ear flicked back as he got a heel in the side. "I'm just trying to help," he grumped.

"Don't," Lanette said with vicious sweetness. Svarog gave a little buck in retaliation, but Lanette sat firm in her saddle.

"Why now?" Jared asked. "This has been going on for nearly a year!"

"Jensen figured it some of it out, but it's irrelevant to the task at hand," Lanette said, not unkindly. "What is relevant is that the Waters of Life need to be unblocked and the Waters of Death are reduced to their normal trickle. It is also relevant that the Waters only exist in this place as long as the noonday sun is shining directly down the well."

Jensen looked into the well. The bottom was dark, but the walls were still sunlit all the way around at the top. This wouldn't last more than, what - five or ten minutes tops?

"Wow. Good thing the personification of the noonday sun is right here. What a co-inky-dink." Svarog said.

"Svarog..."

"I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to myself. There are no rules about me talking to myself." 

There was another heel to the flank and another disgruntled buck.

That settled it. Misha _had_ to meet this horse. It would be the most entertaining disaster in the history of the entire universe.

"So, all we have to do is fix the water supply." Jensen pumped his arms and wings in preparation for the descent. "Sounds like a plan."

Actually, he suspected that things would be as far from simple as the Golden Mountain was as far from the village. A number of things collided in his mind, trying to form a pattern. Jared's theory about them being baited. The fact that both of them had nearly fallen in the well as children. The fact that the witch owned this well, and someone else had interfered with it at a significant time of year that had once again rolled around on the calendar. No details shook out, but Jensen thought he was starting to see the shape of the story.

Jared stared down into the well as if it held his doom. It was a long, long way down, and from the green tint to his skin, Jensen guessed that his stomach was already rebelling.

Lanette dismounted and walked over to the well. She grabbed hold of the metal grate and flung it aside with a casual toss that sent it over flying the tops of the nearby trees. Then she sat on the edge of the well and swung her legs around so they were dangling inside the well.

"I can give you twenty minutes more than you would have had otherwise," she said. "I wish you luck."

"Good luck! Good luck!" the dogs caroled. "Hurry back, Jared! We'll wait! We'll wait!"

"Try not to die," Svarog rumbled.

That last bit might be a challenge, given that they were about to have a close encounter with the Waters of _Death_. "You ready?" he asked Jared.

"Yes," Jared said, although he was shaking his head.

"On three, then," Jensen said. He remembered the flowerpots, and was amazed at how long ago that seemed. Maybe he had a dog's sense of time despite being a cat person. "One, two, three, JUMP!"

They spiraled down the well shaft. The strange carvings were here, too, but unworn by weather. Labyrinthine circles. Giant trees with roots going as far down as the branches went up. Jagged runes that seemed to push meaning directly into their brains through their eyes.

The sound of rushing water from below grew louder as the light from above grew dimmer. Jensen wondered if they would have to do this task in utter darkness, but as Lanette's light faded, a cold blue light emanated from the walls. There were big smears of some sort of slime that glowed just enough for them to see around them

Down they went, further and further. The circle of light above grew smaller and smaller. Jensen felt a sharp pang of dread on behalf of seven-year-old him. This would have been a very, very long fall, if he'd fallen in at noon. The burbling from below grew louder still. It was clearly water, but it didn't sound nice, the way a rushing stream did. This sounded like malicious whispers. They could also start to smell it over the cold damp of the stones. A sharp smell, like too-bright light. A hot, coppery smell that couldn't decide if it was metal or blood. 

Jared glided into view, mouth to his hand as he fought off the gagging, and Jensen felt a vicious thrill of satisfaction. The bastard deserved to puke out ever organ in his body, and - no. The temptation was there, but it was like water on oilcloth. Bits of it clung in beads, and he couldn't shake it all off, but it didn't penetrate. Part of their transformation, maybe?

"You're doing great!" he called out to Jared, trying to sound completely sincere, with no chance of having it mistaken for mockery. "I don't think we've got much further to go."

It all depended on the size of the two basins he could now just barely see far down in the well. He couldn't see the floor they were resting on, or where the walls met the floor, so there was no way to judge from perspective. Also, the well was growing wider and wider as they went down. There was also nothing near the basins that gave him any context to their size. All he could tell was that they were two hollowed out white stones. One was bone dry and the other was bubbling over with water.

When they reached the basins, it turned out they weren't sitting on a floor at all. They were hanging there in mid-shaft with nothing visible holding them in place. Jared and Jensen winged over to the empty basin and stood on the edge. 

"So, you think that once we get this unplugged, people will stop being such jerks to each other?" Jensen asked.

"I hope so." Jared walked down the slope of the basin to the bottom. There was a flat stone sitting there, and it looked like it was blocking a hole. There was a ring of damp around it, as if the seal wasn't quite watertight, but nothing was actually flowing out. "I have a feeling it would be a good idea to get this one open, first."

Jared squatted down and got his fingers under the stone. There was barely enough of a rim for him to get a grip. His legs and butt strained and his face went bright red as he tried to deadlift the thing. "A little help?" he asked wheezily as he stood up, pressing one hand to the small of his back and shaking the pain out of the other.

"Sure. Sorry about that. Jensen walked up to the stone, and squinted at it. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but there was writing on it. "Hey, did you read this?"

"Read what - oh."

**For one to open, the other must close**

"I'd ask you to bet on where the 'other' is, but you don't take sucker bets." Jensen flitted up and over to the other basin. He could hover better than Jared could, so it was easier for him to check things out. Sure enough, there was a big hole at the bottom of the basin, and water blasted out to fall over the edge of the basin and flow down into the infinity below. From there, Jensen knew it was being carried unimaginably far.

He peered into the water, which was crystal clear (and wasn't there something about water that was too clear being dead water?) and saw a stone like the one in the other basin, but tipped up on edge so that the hole was completely open. He could only make out a few words, but he could figure out what this stone said easily enough.

**For one to close, the other must open**

"Well?" Jared asked.

"This is bad. We gotta do them both at the same time," Jensen said. 

"That means that someone's got to - "

"Yeah. Someone's got to swimming in the Waters of Death. That's not gonna end well." 

They were both quiet for a good while. Nothing in any of the witch's annoyingly chatty letters had suggested that one of them would have to die for the other to survive. Daybreak hadn't dropped any hints, but she probably hadn't known. Jensen didn't see her keeping that kind of secret very well. Lanette hadn't betrayed anything, either. Or maybe she didn't know. Or maybe that sort of thing just didn't matter to goddesses.

Jared looked stricken, and Jensen felt something in his own heart go _crack_. They'd only come to know each other in the past couple of days. Before that, there was Gen to connect them, but there was no connection between the two of them beyond that. Now, though...

Jensen knew several stories where people who had only known each other for a day fell hopelessly and irrevocably in True Love. But those were stories. And both he and Jason were of the opinion that the characters in them were fucking idiots. This was something else. He hadn't fallen in love with Jared, not quite, but there had been enough for him to know that love was something that could happen - that probably _would_ happen - eventually. 

They would definitely be friends. No, scratch that - they already were.

So, no, this wasn't going to be some sappy tale where one person sacrificed himself for true love. Instead, Jensen thought, it was something much sadder - the loss of what could have been.

Then, because he was at heart a selfish prick, he grinned and called out to Jared. 

"Hey, Jared! On three, okay? One, two, three - "

"JENSEN!"

" _Go!_ " 

Jensen let himself fall straight down into the Waters of Death, trusting to the instinct that told him that he could survive this long enough to make it to the plug and that he hadn't just offed himself to no purpose out of sheer, impetuous stupidity.

The water was so cold it knocked the breath from him. He was tempted to swim back up and suck down lungsful of air, but he knew that if he did that, he wouldn't find the strength to swim back down. All his joints already hurt like hell, and everything felt bruised and burned. The water rushing out of the hole battered him as he tried to swim past it to get to the plug. He felt a horrible tearing sensation that nearly made him black out. Something purple and sparkly disappeared upwards in the flow, followed by a trail of red. 

The only good thing was that losing a wing meant there was less drag as he swam towards the plug.

Besides, good riddance to those fucking curlicues. 

A terrible thirst took him the longer he stayed underwater, but he knew better than to open his mouth. Also, his old friend, Black Spots In My Peripheral Vision, had come to pay another visit. Another feeble kick, and he was able to get his hands on the edge of the plug. He pulled. Nothing moved. 

He pulled again. Nothing.

Then, finally, he pulled, and the stone tilted back down towards the hole. The black spots took more of his vision and it hurt like everloving fuck to move, but he still managed to swing himself around to the other side of the plug and push, kicking with what little strength he had left.

He hoped Jared would be okay. He just wished he could be there to see that for himself.

He wished he could have had a chance to see how the story ended.

The stone began to fall of its own accord.

Jensen let go. And then he _let go_.

The black overtook him, and it didn't hurt nearly as much as he thought it would. Maybe all the other times he'd passed out or been knocked out in the past couple of days had been good practice.

There was no more pain. None at all.

Actually, scratch that.

Something hurt like a _motherfucker_. Some piece of rock or tree root or whatever was that was poking into his shoulder _right_ where his wing had been ripped off. 

The blackness of death gave way to the oogy red of sunlight through eyelids. 

"Urgh?"

He heard a scrabbling of claws, and then felt something warm and slimy furiously lapping all over his face.

"Urgh!"

"That's enough, Harley," Jared said. "Svarog says to remind you he told you not to die, by the way. He and Lanette had to leave - she said that if they held noon in place any longer, there would be consequences."

Harley barked, and it was just an ordinary bark. Jensen opened his eyes and saw a normal sized dog instead of a drooling giant. He reached to the side of his head and was pleased to find that the tops of his ears were round again.

"How...?"

"The Waters of Life, of course," Jared said. He sounded more than a little shaky. "It was the first thing I tried, um, _after_ , and I wasn't sure it even worked until we got out. Lanette said that it wouldn't have worked if you hadn't intended to..."

Jensen sat up and rubbed his eyes. He waved aside all the sentimental crap. "Instinct, remember. Apparently it's my strong suit. Hey, but it worked, so it's all good, right?"

"You were _dead!_ " Jared shouted.

Whoa. He actually sounded pretty angry about that. Harley and Sadie cringed back instinctively.

"Sorry?" Jensen felt his own anger start to rise. "What, were we supposed to stop and debate who would be the one to nobly sacrifice himself? We had what, maybe five minutes left? I was _right there_ over the plug. And it fits, right? Nightfallen and going into that long night, Daybreaker and going back into daylight?"

Jared did not look at all impressed with this logic and Jensen remembered some of the things that Jared had wanted to believe about himself. That he was a hero. 

Well, he _was_ , dammit.

"Look. It needed both of us to do it. Each time, right?" It had been that way with the grain, with each falling to the task he could do best and enjoy doing besides. With the Firebird, Jared had figured out how to ask the right question, and Jensen had figured out what the answer meant. "Sorry I didn't give you a choice on this last one."

Jared stood there for a moment, hand on his forehead and shaking his head. "I - I think I'm going to be mad about this for a while. I know why you did it, but still... It was stupid, and it was _selfish_."

Jensen had known that going in. He wasn't going to be the one left behind picking up the pieces and wondering what might have been. He sighed. "I don't know what you want me to say, Jared."

He didn't know how to make it right.

"Just... give me a little while to be mad, okay." Jared gave him a rueful smile. "There are times I think I might've patched it up with Gen if I hadn't tried to get her to stop being upset about what I did."

Jensen couldn't find a single flaw in that logic. "Fair enough. So, is this a 'get out of my sight,' mad, or is it a 'I'm going to be terse and snippy around you for a while' mad."

Jared fought back a wry smile. "More the latter than the former, but not entirely. And it's a mad you damn well earned. It's not a Waters of Death kind of mad."

Jensen was quiet for a moment as he reminded himself which was 'latter' and which was 'former,' and was reassured at what he remembered. "That works," he said.

He was puzzling out what to say next when they heard furious barking from just inside the woods. Sadie had wandered off after some intriguing scent and had found something she wanted them to see. Harley, slow on the uptake as usual, started barking a second later. They headed into the woods, following the sound of the barks. As they picked their way through the underbrush, Jensen noticed that one of the creeks now had a small trickle of water at the bottom.

They found the dogs sitting impatiently but loyally, guarding what they had found. One of Jensen's traps had been tripped. A large bag dangled from the wire loop and a note was tacked to the bag. The wax seal was familiar, although the scale was much smaller than they were used to.

Jared waited patiently, arms crossed over that gloriously massive chest of his. It was clear that part of being angry meant that Jensen got the fun of reading the letter.

When he broke the seal, a whole bunch of festive purple (of _course_ it was purple) glitter burst out. He had the feeling that he'd be finding it in his clothes and hair for _weeks_.

**Dear Jared and Jensen,**

**Congratulations! You passed your three trials, and you fixed the well that a certain someone who shall remain nameless sabotaged in an attempt to steal my power (hint - he's an immortal sorceror, or at least he thinks he's immortal). But that's another story for another time and another hero!**

Good. The only stories Jensen was interested in right now were ones he was telling. He didn't want to be a part of one for a good long while, if ever.

**So because you TOTALLY and ACCIDENTALLY did me a HUGE favor, I need to repay the favor. Rules are rules, right? So go ahead and open the bag. I think you'll be pleased.**

Jared shrugged and lifted the bag down from the snare. Inside were two other bags. One of rye (pointy) and one of wheat (not pointy). None of it was moldy.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

**I am not kidding. Jared, you should know what the rye is good for. Also, the wheat is winter wheat, by the way.**

"If we plant the rye now, and if there's enough rain to get it to grow, we'll get an autumn crop. It won't be a lot, but..." He hefted the bag of rye, judging its weight. "It could mean the difference between starving or not. And the winter wheat will be ready to harvest in spring. I think there's enough here to make up for the seed we've been having to eat."

**The other gift will help you hold off winter a little bit longer. Unwrap it right before you expect the first frost, and you'll get another month of growing time.**

Jensen reached into the bag and pulled out something long and bendy, wrapped tightly in fine red silk. It was warm to the touch. 

"The Firebird feather?"

**That's right! I don't need it anymore. I just ask that you please tell dear JD not to be too generous with the Firebird. I love the dear thing, but she just doesn't know the meaning of restraint.**

"One more month of growing before winter hits?" Jared said, awestruck. "That could be the difference between life and death for so many people."

"Right. And no more stupid rumors about people hoarding food." Speaking of rumors, he owed Misha one hell of an apology for the accusations he'd made while under the influence.

**You'll also be pleased to know that the problems your village has been facing should start fading soon. Don't be discouraged if you don't see an immediate improvement, but all should be well by Harvest Moon, and we can all par-TY!!! It's my most favoritest time of year!**

**Remember, Jensen. I want to hear you sing. And Jared, I want a dance, okay?**

**Love and kisses,  
The Witch**

"Do you really think she'll show up?" Jared asked.

Jensen didn't answer for a while, thanks to his mind going completely blank with horror at the idea. 

"We'll see. Even if she does, I'm still finally looking forward to Harvest Moon again. I should have enough time to get the story into shape by then."

"Good. I can't wait to hear it." Jared paused. "That doesn't mean I'm not still pissed at you, though."

"Eh, whatever." Jensen folded up the letter, meaning to keep it as - proof? a souvenir? - but it faded away into nothing as he folded. Oh, well. "Wanna go tell JD that we survived? I could use a drink."

"Same here. Still pissed, though. Just so you know."

Jensen gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder as they set off towards JD's place. "Just as long as you're over it by Harvest Moon, pal."

He had a feeling that the after-festival celebrations this year had the potential to be very memorable indeed.

"I think I can do that."

"Good."

And it _was_ good. 

For the first time in what seemed like a very long time, Jensen could believe that everything was going to be okay.

No, everything was going to be more than okay. 

Everything was going to be wonderful, he thought, as they walked off together under the light of the bright red sun.


	6. Harvest Moon (Epilogue)

The first sign that this was going to be a good day was drifting into wakefulness up well after sunrise with someone's arm slung comfortably over his torso.

"Mmmm...."

The second sign was the delicious memory of who that person was, and how he had come to be in Jensen's bed.

"Morning," he said, feeling very pleased with himself indeed. The last year had sucked, but lately it felt like the universe had turned itself out to make things up to him.

Jared responded with a grunt. 

Jensen would never not find it hilarious that so many Daybreakers - including their patron goddess - were NOT morning people. Then again, a lot of people were probably having slow mornings today, given it was the day after Harvest Moon. Nothing ever got done on that day except what was absolutely essential - animals got fed and watered, and emergencies were dealt with, but that was about it.

People would also be glad of the break after a long, hard month of work. The day of Jensen and Jared's final trial, nightfall was accompanied by a gentle, soaking rain that lasted most of the following day. People had rushed outside to dance in the rain, and while things were far from back to normal, it felt like the rain washed away a lot of the bad of the past year.

After that impromptu rain festival, there was a scramble and hurry to get in some late crops for winter - lots of turnips and carrots and bitter greens. Jared had also been delighted to see that the rain had coaxed some of the bean plants back to life. Of courses, his farm's proximity to the Waters of Life probably hadn't hurt. The yield would be small, but there would be a yield. 

Jared also said that if they timed the unwrapping of the feather right, they could get in a late planting of bush beans. Then there would be the rye. Jensen had also spotted some game animals moving back into the area, which would help supply stew pots throughout the village. The winter would be tight, but it would be survivable. 

What he'd seen yesterday at the festival had made him even more certain of that. 

The animosities of the past year had mostly faded. True, there was still some tensions (Jake was still pissed at him, for example), but Aldis and Misha were back to being best buds, and he and Jason had played and sung until they were hoarse and their fingertips were swollen.

Well, Kim and Osric did into another screaming fight about the produce judging, but that was just Kim and Osric. In fact, when people started hashing out what had happened over the past year and how everyone just sort of went bugfuck insane for a while, nearly everyone mentioned the cold civility between the two at the Long Nights Moon pie judging as one of the first signs that things were truly starting to get bad.

Anyway, the screaming fight was finally settled with no hard feelings in favor of Kim after some calm but firm arbitration from a blonde stranger dressed in beat-up black leather and canvas. No one recognized her, but they all listened to her just the same. After, Misha had offered to buy her fine black stallion. She just let out a longsuffering sigh at that and gave Misha a withering look that he would eventually recover from. Probably.

There hadn't been a lot of food, and most of the grain that would have gone to ale had been used for bread over the summer, but there had been enough to go around and enough to keep everyone going for a good long time in the dance square.

The line dances started off with the traditional breakdowns of Daybreak and Nightfall, but things started mixing up when people started forming squares. Jim Beaver and Sam Ferris danced together, and so did Misha and Matt, and Richard and Tori. He even saw Jared dancing a round with Gen, and got a glare from Jason for muffing the next chord.

He also saw JD dancing with a pretty and slightly glowy redhead, which oh, _fuck no_. Jared was dancing with her a little while later, and Jensen saw his head bent close to her ear. It looked like he was asking a question. It must have been one she could answer, because she smiled up at him and spoke for a good long while. From the brilliant smile he gave in return, it looked like the answer was a good one. 

More people were out this year than normal, and there were quite a few Jensen couldn't put a name to or just plain didn't recognize. One in particular stood out. It was another redhead, but her hair was much shorter than Daybreak's, and was bedecked with a wee blue top hat with a little red flower. She made a point of dancing with Jared, and as they danced, her stripey stocking flashed from beneath her skirt. After that one turn, she disappeared back into the crowd.

He thought he saw her again a little later (the top hat gave it away) when he and Jason finally launched into a new song written just for the festival - The Firebird's Dying Flame. Daybreak clapped in glee like a little girl, and JD looked properly smug (and he needed to get his arm _off_ from around her shoulders _right now_ ), but the redhead in the tophat just gave him a knowing smile all throughout the song. It was the smile of someone who know that what she was hearing was _true_.

Jensen didn't see her again after that.

The dancing and singing went on longer than Jensen could keep up. He wanted to have fingertips left in the morning, thank you very much. So, he slipped off between sets and poured himself a dipper full of good, clean water. Then he took another dipper full, just because he could.

He nearly dropped the ladle when someone put a (very large) hand between his shoulders, right where his wings used to be attached. It rubbed gently over the long scar where the one wing had been ripped off. His mom had had fits, and had demanded an explanation. Jensen promised he would give one later. It would be later that fall, when he and Jared unveiled the Firebird's feather. 

Of course, if the Firebird decided to stop by for a bottle of JD's Finest, that might help them explain what had happened without sounding clinically insane.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Jared said. Standing in front of him like this, Jensen could feel the rumble of his voice. "You doing okay?"

"Just tired." He wanted to lean back into that warm, strong hand, but wasn't sure it would be welcome - yet. "What about you? You had some interesting dance partners, from the look of things. Gen danced with you? Willingly?"

"Yeah." There was ruefulness there, and regret, but it didn't sound raw. "I don't think she's still mad, but she's being... careful?"

Right. Just like Jensen still had to be careful about his shoulder even though it looked like things had healed over.

"Who was that redhead with the top hat?" Jensen thought he should recognize her, but nothing came to mind.

"Who? Felicia? She..." Jared paused. "I'm not exactly sure. She said I owed her a - oh."

Oh, indeed. She had also said she wanted to hear Jensen sing.

"Huh. Well, she's not exactly what I pictured."

"That's one way of putting it," Jared said ruefully. "Oh - I did get a chance to ask Daybreak my third question."

Jensen laughed. Jared still did not take his hand away. "I figured. What did you ask, and what did she answer?"

"Well, it might be simpler to let you see and judge for yourself without any outside influence."

The words brought back a memory of flowerpots and wings, but this time they were gentle and teasing.

"Oh? How so?"

Jared's hand lifted from his back and grabbed his shoulder. He pulled Jensen around to face him and then pulled him close. By the time Jared was leaning in for the kiss, Jensen knew to rise up to meet it. It wasn't the best kiss - teeth knocked, and both of them tried to tilt their head in the same direction - but that didn't matter. It mattered even less when Jared's hand went to the small of his back and then lower. Jensen laughed into the kiss, then pulled back just long enough to ask a question of his own.

"Wanna take this somewhere more private?" 

The smile he got in return was the best answer possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally written as a pinch hit for the 2014/2015 SPN Reversebang. I kind of shocked myself by writing this much story in such a little time (4 weeks!). I do hope to revisit some of the ideas in here in some timestamps, so if there is anything you would be particularly interested in seeing more of, please let me know. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to aishuu, who is a goddess among betas. She was willing to tell me when things were not working, and prompted me to make this ever so much better. Also, many thanks to sillie82, the artist whose images inspired this story. Her wonderful art (including portraits of all three riders and the witch) can be seen [here](http://sillie82.livejournal.com/328526.html). Go leave her much praise.


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